Future Past
by MCostello
Summary: Malone and Roxton travel through time trying to find answers to some of the Lost World's questions.


The Lost World   
Future Past  
By M. Costello   
  
  
"Looks like we've found it, Malone!" John Roxton  
called.  
  
Below them lay a stand of very tall trees, enveloped in  
a thick, almost opaque, gray-white fog. Since leaving the tree-  
house two days beforehand, both men had begun to wonder if the  
'Forest of Eternal Mists' actually existed. Neither man had  
expressed his doubts to the other, but if questioned both would  
have probably wondered aloud if they'd set off on some grand and  
glorious, wild-goose-chase...  
  
Malone nodded. "Veronica said the leaves we need are  
just inside the forest boundary..."  
  
"Dark green with a red mottling on them?"  
  
"Yes..."  
  
Roxton un-slung the canteen from his shoulder and took  
a draw of water from it. The liquid was tepid, but slaked his  
thirst a bit and gave him a few seconds pause to rest his tired  
and aching feet.  
  
"She said to make sure we take only the freshest  
looking leaves; they're the ones with the highest level of the  
chemical Challenger requires to make the medicene the Zanga  
need," Malone continued.  
  
It was Roxton's turn to nod. "I just hope he's right  
about the incubation time. If he's off by just a little, the  
plague could sweep through the entire village and kill everyone."  
  
"You've seen something similar to this before?" Ned  
Malone asked.  
  
Roxton capped the canteen and re-hung it over his  
shoulder.   
  
"Yes, I have," he answered. "Ten years ago when I was  
on safari in Africa when we came across a number of frantic  
people, carrying everything they owned on their backs from a  
nearby village. We stopped and asked several of them what the  
matter was and they told us an 'evil spirit' had taken over their  
lands..."  
  
Both men were walking once more, down the hill towards  
the tall trees.  
  
"An 'evil spirit'?"  
  
"We assumed they meant a disease of some kind, an  
hypothesis that was soon bourne out. We took a scouting party  
into the outskirts of the village -everyone there was dead. Or  
nearly so..."  
  
"Any idea what it was?"  
  
Roxton glanced at him and shook his head. "I'd never  
seen anything like this disease before. The villagers were  
bleeding out, from every possible body orifice. The survivors  
came back later and burned everything, after the disease had run  
it's course. They seemed to recognize what it was, though no one  
could really tell us how or from what it got started."  
  
"And now the Zanga are facing a similar fate..."  
  
"I don't believe in 'fate' Malone..."  
  
"How about faith?"  
  
Roxton offered him a thin smile. "I'm here, aren't I?"  
  
Malone smiled in return. "Spoken like a true optimist!"  
  
"If Veronica says these leaves can cure the plague the  
Zanga are facing, then I believe her. I've seen far too many  
strange things happen on this plateau, that she seemingly knows  
all about!"  
  
Malone chuckled. "True..."  
  
Roxton motioned ahead. "Shall we?"  
  
"How long do you figure until we get there?"  
  
"Maybe a couple more hours," Roxton surmised. "That is,  
if we don't have any further encounters with raptors along the  
way!"   
  
"Veronica did say the local wildlife stays away from  
here..."  
  
Roxton looked over his shoulder at Malone. "You ever  
notice that when the local animals stay away from a place, it's  
usually for a good reason?"  
  
"I have noticed that," Ned Malone said.  
  
"Good! I'm glad to see it isn't just me!"  
  
****  
  
The two hour walk was made mostly in silence as the  
jumbled landscape around them became progressively harder to make  
their way through. The canopy of the tree-tops offered little  
respite from the heat of the day or the very strong sun;  
Challenger had said the plateau was moving into the dry, hot  
season and neither man had reason to disbelieve him.  
  
At the edge of the 'Forest of Eternal Mists', Roxton  
paused once more to take a drink of water.  
  
"A cold martini would do nicely right now!" he offered,  
to the forest at hand.  
  
Malone smiled. "I'd settle for a walk in the winter  
snows! Vermont maybe or New Hampshire..."  
  
After a second drink of water, Roxton shook the  
canteen. "How are you doing water-wise?"  
  
Malone checked the canteen on his belt. "I should have  
enough to make it back to that watering-hole we found yesterday."  
  
"Good," Roxton said. Holding his tongue for a moment,  
Roxton listened. Where once the land around them had been alive  
with the calls of the various beasts, large and small, there was,  
only now, silence.  
  
"Quiet..." Malone said, under his breath.  
  
"Isn't it though," Roxton agreed. "We've got about five  
hours of daylight left. We'll find the trees Veronica spoke of  
and make camp for the night. First thing tomorrow we'll gather  
all the leaves we can and start back..."  
  
****  
  
The 'tree' Veronica had told them about turned out to  
be little more than a bush, scarcely taller than a man. The  
leaves were a glossy, deep-green, with red veins under the  
surface, and reeked with a powerful, dung-like stench.  
  
"Everyone at the tree-house should have no trouble  
telling we're on our way back!" Ned Malone said, making a face.  
"They'll smell us, long before we get there!"  
  
John Roxton smiled. "Let's hope it acts as a repellant  
for those raptors we were talking about earlier! Might make the  
trip back a little easier!"  
  
"Since we have a few hours before sunset, you want to  
take a look around?" Ned Malone asked.  
  
"I see Challenger's infected you with his undying  
curiosity..."  
  
"I'm a writer and a journalist; we're a curious breed!"  
  
Roxton chuckled. "Very well, but if we run into  
anything out of the ordinary, we grab all the leaves we can carry  
and start back! We can't afford to waste time with so many lives  
on the line, getting caught up in who knows what!"  
  
"Agreed!" Malone said.  
  
****  
  
"I can hardly see the hand in front of my face!" John  
Roxton said.  
  
As they'd gone further into the shifting mists, it had  
thickened until even the trees were only faint outlines, shadows  
against the gray-white pall.  
  
"I was in San Francisco once; this 'fog' makes the fog  
there seem like a clear day by comparison," Malone answered.  
  
Roxton glanced down at the coil of rope in his right  
hand, then back at the length trailing off into the mists behind  
them. "I think we should turn back..."  
  
Malone started to reply, but bit back his words. Over  
the sounds of their own breathing he thought he detected a slight  
'buzzing' in the air. The buzzing was followed by a brief, loud  
'pop' and the smell of ozone...  
  
"Smell that?" Malone asked.  
  
"Like an electrical discharge after a thunderstorm..."  
  
"There's a sound too..."  
  
"Like bees. A lot of bees."  
  
Malone let go of the rope and fell in beside Roxton.  
"Sounds like it's directly ahead of us."  
  
"No, it sounds like it's coming towards us..." Roxton  
slid the rifle off of his left shoulder and lowered the barrel to  
face the possible threat.  
  
The buzz increased in volume and the air seemed to  
almost crackle with a static charge, around them.  
  
"Grab hold of the rope and back out the way we came,"  
Roxton said, keeping both eyes trained into the swirling fog in  
front of them.  
  
Malone didn't answer.  
  
"Malone?" Roxton backed away from the source of the  
buzzing noise, directly into Ned Malone.  
  
"Malone, you all right?"  
  
He was staring straight ahead, both eyes slightly wide.  
"What is that?"  
  
Roxton glanced forward again, felt his finger tighten  
involuntarily on the trigger of the rifle. He had dealt with many  
strange and sometimes wonderful things on this plateau, but what  
moved towards them from the depths of the fog, froze him in his  
tracks.  
  
What moved towards them was a column of shifting light  
nearly three meters tall and at least twice that in width. The  
column of light spun with eddies of violet and electric blue and  
pulsated with an almost inaudible sound that made the hairs on  
the back of Roxton's neck stand up.  
  
"You feel that?" Malone asked.  
  
Roxton nodded. "Like one of Challengers Tesla coils..."  
  
The column of light came to within two meters of them  
and stopped.  
  
"What's it waiting for?"  
  
"Maybe for us to get out of it's way..."  
  
As one, both men stepped sideways; the column of light  
moved with them.  
  
"Looks like that's not it," Roxton mused. "Back away  
and see if it follows."  
  
Standing shoulder to shoulder, both men took two steps  
backwards; the column of light moved with them again, stopping  
when they ceased movement.  
  
"Okay. What now?"  
  
Malone looked at him. "You're asking me?"  
  
Roxton shrugged. "You're the curious one..."  
  
"I thought you might bring that up!" Malone said. He  
peered at the column of light, a slightly puzzled frown on his  
face. "In places you can almost see through it, while in  
others..."  
  
"It's as murky as Marguerite's last dinner broth!"  
  
Malone smiled. "I'm sure she'd be delighted with the  
analogy!"  
  
"I'll deny everything!" Roxton said.  
  
Malone turned back to the column of light. "So what do  
we do with you?" he called out to it.  
  
The column of light seemed to burn with a bit more  
brilliance with his question, something that didn't go un-noticed  
by either man.  
  
"Intelligent?" Malone gave voice to the question Roxton  
was pondering.  
  
"Just when I thought I'd seen everything..."  
  
Malone stepped forward, only to be grasped by Roxton.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"I was going to touch it."  
  
"And be electrocuted?! I don't think so!"  
  
"It hasn't made any overt threats..."  
  
"Other than blocking our way forward and following us  
the way we came. In certain situations, those could be considered  
overt threats," Roxton warned.  
  
"If only Challenger were here..."  
  
"Yes, if only Challenger were here; we'd probably be up  
to our eyeballs in trouble right about now!"  
  
Unseen by the two men, a thin tendril of coruscating,  
almost liquid, light disengaged itself from the main body and  
slithered over Ned Malone's reaching hand. It covered that hand  
in a cool plasma, changing colors from pale white to blue, as it  
did so.  
  
"What the..."  
  
"Malone..."  
  
He stared at his right hand for a long moment, then  
held it up in front of his face. The tendril clung to his hand  
and trailed back to the main body of the column of light, a  
miasma of color and form.  
  
"This is...interesting," Malone said.  
  
"It's not hurting you?"  
  
"Not at all. Where it touches my bare skin, it's cool,  
almost like water from a spring house."  
  
"Only it's not a spring house..."  
  
Malone shook his head. "This is so strange. I feel like  
I'm -like it's trying to show me something."  
  
Roxton had to admit he was fascinated by the object in  
front of them. Though an educated man, there were a great many  
things he didn't understand in this world; he'd hardly expected  
the education he'd gotten on this strange plateau the three years  
he'd been stuck here and was quite certain no one would believe a  
word of it when and if they ever got back to civilisation...  
  
Lowering the rifle barrel, Roxton stepped forward.  
  
"We'll have to leave it for later. Right now we've got  
more important fish to fry, namely getting the leaves for  
Challenger to make the antidote for the Zanga," he said.  
  
Malone met his eyes for just a moment, disappointment  
in his own. "You're right, of course. Whatever this is, it can  
wait for awhile..."  
  
Roxton reached for Malone's shoulder. As he did so, a  
second tendril slid away from the column of light and touched his  
hand. The coruscating plasma began to move up his arm, covering  
it.  
  
"Roxton..."  
  
"I see it Malone!"  
  
In an eye-blink, both men found themselves cocooned and  
looking at the world through an ever-changing flow of color, of  
light and dark...  
  
Roxton tried to speak, but found he had no voice. The  
cocoon of energy around him began to dance, the colors flowing  
like the chalk drawings he'd seen on a Paris sidewalk some years  
before, during a brief summer rain.  
  
He felt as though he were falling, as though each and  
every atom of his body were being pulled apart and reassembled.  
He wanted to cry out, but no sound came...  
  
John Roxton and Ned Malone winked out of existence.  
  
****  
  
"What the devil was that?" John Roxton asked when his  
voice returned.  
  
Ned Malone was standing beside him once more, as  
puzzled as Roxton. "We were -in the 'Forest of Eternal Mists'.  
Then, all of a sudden, we're -here..."  
  
"Wherever 'here' is!"  
  
"This all looks familiar..."  
  
Roxton thought for a moment. "It does and it  
doesn't..."  
  
Malone glanced his way.  
  
Roxton continued. "This looks like we're very near the  
tree-house, but the trees are much older and even taller than  
before."  
  
Malone hadn't noticed and confirmed Roxton's  
observation with one of his own. "And there's something else too;  
the forest is as quiet as the one we just left..."  
  
Roxton listened. "There is...it sounds like some kind  
of machinery."  
  
Far off in the distance a chorus of angry, mechanical  
engines sounded, while under their feet the ground shuddered from  
heavy impacts of something falling to earth.  
  
"I don't understand this," Malone said.  
  
"Almost feels like cannon blasts..."  
  
"Without explosions?"  
  
"Let's get back to the tree-house..."  
  
Malone led the way, with Roxton directly behind.  
  
"Did you feel anything, when whatever it was covered us  
over?" Roxton asked.  
  
"I felt as though I were falling..."  
  
"There was something else, something before the falling  
sensation. I felt as though I were being taken apart and put back  
together!"  
  
Malone nodded. "I was afraid, but it was like there was  
something there telling me not to be..." Malone halted in his  
tracks so quickly Roxton nearly bowled him over.  
  
"Malone!"  
  
"The tree..." Malone pointed.  
  
Roxton followed the gesture, staring with disbelief at  
the sight in front of him. Much of the second story of the tree-  
house was gone, the thatch roof and walls lying on the ground at  
the base of the tree. Items from the interior were strewn about  
the forest floor...  
  
"Looks like something pulled it down..."  
  
"Pterodactyls maybe?"   
  
"I'm not sure," Roxton said. Looking around, his eyes  
picked out something lying in the nearby brush. He walked quickly  
to it, bent down to one knee.  
  
"Something?" Malone asked.  
  
Roxton picked up a dirty, pearlescent colored hair  
comb. "Recognize this?"  
  
Ned Malone took it from him. "Veronica's. Her parent's  
gave it to her as a little girl, for a birthday gift."  
  
"It's been out here for awhile," Roxton said. "Look at  
the other side of the comb; faded, weathered, like it's lain here  
for years..."  
  
"Veronica!" Malone stowed the comb in his pocket and  
walked rapidly towards the tree-house. "Veronica!!"  
  
"Malone!" Roxton called to him.  
  
Malone ran to the tree-house. "Veronica!!!"  
  
"So much for the element of surprise..." Roxton lowered  
the rifle and went after him.  
  
"Veronica!!" Malone went to the elevator and  
disappeared inside.  
  
Roxton walked slowly through the remains of the tree-  
house until he found a good sized panel, measuring about four  
square meters. Holding the rifle in one hand, he reached for a  
section of vine woven through the panel and gave it a hard tug;  
the vine snapped in two with a puff of dust...  
  
"Interesting..."  
  
"The elevator's broken," Malone reappeared. "It looks  
as though some kind of animal has been making it's home there for  
awhile."  
  
"That's not all," Roxton said. "Take a look at this."  
  
Malone took the offered vine, a frown on his face.  
  
"If I understood Veronica correctly, those vines are as  
strong woven hemp; this one came apart with little real effort on  
my part..."  
  
"What are you saying Roxton?"  
  
"I'm saying that the tree-house wasn't attacked by the  
local fauna or any of the people we've made enemies of the last  
several years. The tree-house fell apart of it's own accord  
because it's been abandoned!"  
  
"Abandoned?!" Malone questioned. "That doesn't make any  
damned sense! We've been gone for two days and this much damage  
would take far longer than two days!"  
  
"I know. I don't understand it either..."  
  
Under their feet the ground trembled; in the distance a  
low roar filled the air. It echoed across the plateau, like a  
sudden burst of summer's thunder, on a cloudless day.  
  
"Explosion?" Malone asked.  
  
"A large one, maybe a couple hundred pounds of ammonium  
nitrate or dynamite..."  
  
"Ammonium nitrate? Don't they use that for open-pit  
mining?"  
  
"That's one of it's uses," Roxton nodded.  
  
"Malone?" a soft voice called.  
  
Malone turned in the direction of the voice, a smile  
starting to form on his lips. The smile froze mid-way.  
  
"Assai?!"  
  
The slight, gray haired woman smiled back, her dark  
eyes alight with the fires of distant memories.  
  
****   
  
Ned Malone helped Assai to a nearby felled tree,  
brushed away loose bark from it before allowing her to take a  
seat.  
  
"It is you, Assai?"  
  
She offered him a serene smile, then nodded. "Yes..."  
  
"But I -don't understand..."  
  
"Neither do I," the Zanga woman said with a shake of  
her head.  
  
John Roxton knelt down on one knee, facing Assai.  
"What's happened here Assai?" he asked.  
  
The gray haired woman looked at him with blank eyes. "I  
was hoping the two of you could tell me..."  
  
"We're as much in the dark as you are," Roxton said.  
  
"Maybe we should start from the beginning," Malone  
said. "We obviously aren't in the same time frame as we were two  
days ago."  
  
Roxton glanced at him; the thought, though niggling at  
the back of his mind, hadn't been completely realized as yet...  
  
"No, you're not," Assai shook her head.  
  
"When are we?"  
  
Assai's dark eyes met his. "You will not believe me..."  
  
"We'll give it the old college try!" Roxton said, using  
a phrase he'd hear Malone once utter.  
  
Assai took a long breath. "Very well. You left the  
tree-house a little more than 41 years ago!"  
  
Roxton and Malone exchanged looks.  
  
"That's -not...not possible!" Malone said.  
  
"I've learned to believe the impossible here on this  
plateau, old boy!" Roxton added.  
  
Malone turned back to Assai. "Do you remember what  
happened?"  
  
"I may be old Ned, but I haven't gotten forgetful.  
Yet!"  
  
He managed a smile. "Sorry..."  
  
Assai waved the apology away. "The two of you left for  
the Forest of Eternal Mists to retrieve the leaves of the kialoma  
plant..."  
  
"For the plague; we remember that much," Roxton said,  
trying not to sound impatient.  
  
Assai nodded once more. "When you did not return in the  
five days the two of you set for yourselves, Veronica went in  
search of you and for the leaves Challenger needed."  
  
"Did she get the leaves to him in time?" Malone asked.  
  
Assai looked away for just a moment. "She did.  
Challenger synthesized enough of the antidote for everyone in the  
village..."  
  
"So why the glum look?" Roxton asked.  
  
"The disease had changed. The antidote did not work as  
effectively as hoped."  
  
"A mutation?" Malone asked.  
  
"That is the word Challenger used," Assai said. "The  
youngest and oldest in the village, all died. The ones who didn't  
die, were left weakened..."  
  
"Where are the Zanga now, Assai?" Roxton asked.  
  
"Here," she said, indicating herself.  
  
Both men were speechless.  
  
"Those who lived through the disease, were unable to  
tend the fields or to hunt for food," Assai continued.  
"Challenger, Marguerite, Veronica, and myself helped as best we  
could, but in the end we could do little to save my people after  
the plague had ravaged us so."  
  
"They all...died?" Malone asked.  
  
"In the weeks that followed. Challenger said their  
'immune systems' were destroyed..."  
  
"A pandemic, like the influenza outbreak in 1918,"  
Roxton said.  
  
"A simple cut or bruise; all proved deadly to my people  
after a time."  
  
"You..."  
  
Assai faced Roxton. "I was one of the last to get sick.  
I lay on my deathbed for days; everyone was astounded when I  
recovered. But, my recovery was too late for what remained of the  
Zanga people..."  
  
"What about Challenger and the others?" Roxton asked.  
"None of them developed..."  
  
Assai shook her head. "Challenger could not understand  
that part of it. He said your people must have had a built in  
immunity to the disease, but he searched for months trying to  
find it!"  
  
Malone reached out and took Assai's hands in his. "I'm  
sorry for the loss of your people..."  
  
Assai managed a slight smile. "It was a long time ago  
Malone, but I accept your sorrow."  
  
"Assai, the others; where are they?"  
  
"Gone. Three years after your disappearances, a team of  
men from your lands arrived and took them home."  
  
"'Disappearances?'"  
  
"We searched for many months for the two of you, not  
wanting to give up. After a year of finding no traces of you,  
almost everyone accepted that you'd probably been killed by one  
of the beasts here on the plateau."  
  
"Veronica..."  
  
Assai met Malone's eyes. "She never accepted the idea  
that the two of you were dead. She searched long after the others  
had given up, often to the point of exhausting herself!"  
  
Malone closed his eyes and nodded.  
  
"Did the others ever come back to the plateau?" Roxton  
asked.  
  
"Challenger did, several more times with larger  
expeditions," Assai answered, her eyes far away. "If he had  
stayed away..."  
  
"What happened?" Malone asked.  
  
"The expeditions took samples back to your world.  
Challenger was a good man who tried to hold the location of this  
place secret..."  
  
"And secrets are tenuous at best," Roxton said.  
  
"Yes," Assai agreed. "The location eventually became  
known. Once it became known, the plateau could be exploited for  
it's riches."  
  
"The sounds of the machinery we heard earlier?" Malone  
asked.  
  
"Yes. Great, open mines, the trees cut and removed to  
build homes in your world."  
  
"And the animals?" Roxton asked.  
  
"There are some remaining in 'zoological parks' in your  
world, but none here."  
  
"All wiped out?" Roxton asked, not wanting to believe  
her words.  
  
Assai nodded. "As I said, Challenger was a good man;  
many of the others who came after him, were, unfortunately, not  
as good!"  
  
Malone met her eyes once more. "D did Veronica return  
with..."  
  
"No," Assai said. "When Challenger, Marguerite, and  
Summerlee returned to your world, Veronica stayed behind..."  
  
"Summerlee?!" Roxton asked, surprised.  
  
"He returned almost a year to the day the two of you  
disappeared."  
  
"Veronica stayed..."   
  
Assai smiled at Malone. "I think she believed the two  
of you would one day walk out of the jungle, the same way  
Summerlee did. She and I ventured forth on many occasions,  
searching and re-searching, but never finding any sign of the two  
of you!"  
  
"Is -is she still..." Malone's voice faded with the  
hope that Veronica was still in this place, no matter the number  
of years that had passed.  
  
"She is nearby. I can take you to her if you'd like,"  
Assai offered.  
  
"I'd like that very much, Assai!" Malone said.  
  
"Could one of you help me to my feet? My old bones ache  
if I sit on an un-cushioned place for too long!"  
  
"Of course!" John Roxton helped the small woman to her  
feet.  
  
"This will all be gone one day," Assai said.  
  
"That saddens me," Roxton said.  
  
Assai glanced up at him. "This world lives on, as long  
as we remember it..."  
  
Roxton looked over head at what remained of the tree-  
house. "Awful lot of fond memories there..."  
  
"If they are in your heart, they are not forgotten!"  
Assai beamed. "Come along Ned, I think Veronica would like to see  
you!"  
  
****  
  
Assai led them to a small glade, over looking an  
expanse of mountains stretching to the distant horizon.  
  
"Pretty place," Roxton said.  
  
"Veronica picked it as her final resting place..."  
  
Malone suddenly stopped walking. "Assai?"  
  
The slight woman turned to face him, her right hand  
pointing towards a small strip of land near a single, brightly  
colored tree.  
  
"Go to her," Assai said. "She would like to see you."  
  
Malone's eyes fell to a place at the base of the tree,  
then back to Assai. "She -she's..."  
  
"Last spring, in her sleep."  
  
"And you didn't think to tell me this before we came  
here!" Malone railed. "What kind of sick..."  
  
Assai reached out and touched his arm. "She truly loved  
you..."  
  
Malone shook his head. "This can't be real, can't be  
happening."  
  
Assai took his hand in hers. "Feel the warmth of my  
hand in yours, the sun shining on your face..."  
  
"This..." he met Assai's dark eyes. "I never -never got  
the chance to tell her..."  
  
"She knew Malone. She knew and loved you every bit as  
much!" the Zanga woman said. "Go. Roxton and I will wait here."  
  
Malone forced his feet to move. As he neared the grave-  
site, he felt his resolve crumble away; Malone wanted to turn and  
run from this place, run back into the jungle and to the Forest  
of Eternal Mists, to vanish into time once more.  
  
Malone looked down. Zanga prayer stones formed a cross  
in the center of Veronica's grave. For a moment he wasn't  
certain, wasn't sure of what to do. He'd never lost anyone close  
to him before and the ache in his heart seemed to override any  
other feeling he might have had.  
  
"Veronica," he at last spoke, his voice little more  
than a whisper. "Assai -Assai brought me here. She said you'd  
like to see me. I want to say something, but I'm not sure of  
what--of what words to use..."  
  
Malone thought in silence for a long moment. "Roxton  
and I; I...don't quite know what happened to us. We -we went to  
get the kialoma leaves and while we were there, this thing came  
at us, out of the forest."  
  
He glanced away. "You teased me once about picking up  
some of Challenger's traits. I guess you were right, because when  
this thing came at us, I didn't want to run, I wanted to find out  
what it was."  
  
Malone looked down at the cross made of stone. "It  
touched me, then Roxton. A few moments later we were here, back  
at the tree-house." Malone smiled. "Only it's not a few moments  
later. Assai tells us it's more like 40 years. Is that right, can  
that possibly be right?"  
  
Malone shook his head. "Assai told us that you never  
stopped looking for us, that you always believed we'd walk out of  
the jungle one day like nothing had ever happened...  
  
"Something did happen though, didn't it? We left and we  
never came back. There was always that possibility whenever we  
left the tree-house, but this one time that possibility became  
real, became a fact. Became a fact to everyone but you that is,  
because you know this crazy place and the things it's capable  
of!"  
  
Malone knelt. "I never got the chance to tell you how I  
felt about you. All those times when I'd look at you and remember  
Gladys back home and the fact that I was supposed to marry her.  
Did you know, there were times I didn't care if we were ever  
found? I didn't care because I knew I'd be here with you and I  
knew that one day, I'd get the chance to tell you exactly how I  
felt..."  
  
He managed a trace of a smile. "I guess I'm getting  
lost in the words again, aren't I? That was a Marguerite  
aphorism, her way of telling me that my prose was a little too  
flowery, something that would be lost on most of the people who'd  
read my journals."  
  
He pressed on. "We uh, we never could seem to admit our  
true feelings to one another. I wanted to, but I could never seem  
to gather up enough courage to do so. Face down a charging T-Rex  
but too afraid to tell you that I -love you."  
  
Malone closed his eyes. "I do love you Veronica. I was  
never more sure of any one thing in my life! I -I just wish I'd  
told you when I had the chance!!"  
  
He opened his eyes, suddenly thought of the pearlescent  
hair comb Roxton had found.   
  
Malone pulled it out of his pocket, knelt looking at  
the comb for a long moment. "I -I don't have a lot here with me,  
but I know this was special to you. It's the comb your parents  
gave you for your birthday, so long ago. I figure, you might like  
to have it again."  
  
Malone leaned over her grave and put the hair comb at  
the head of the cross, between two stones so it wouldn't fly away  
in the high winds that blew on occasion across the plateau. He  
reached out and grasped one of the prayer stones.   
  
"I love you Veronica! Maybe next time around, I'll get  
it right!"  
  
He said a brief prayer, then stood and walked back to  
where Assai and Roxton stood...  
  
"Ned, are you all right?" John Roxton asked, concerned.  
  
Ned Malone couldn't meet his eyes. "I will be..."  
  
Malone felt something cool and familiar, looked down at  
his right hand; the tendril of light was back and spread rapidly  
up his arm. Across from him, Roxton was slowly being enveloped by  
it as well.  
  
"Assai, move away!" Malone warned.  
  
The Zanga woman stepped back from them, her dark eyes  
wide. The multi-colored light encasing the two men glowed with a  
shifting iridescence, that, as she watched, faded into  
nothingness.  
  
Assai frowned as air flowed in to fill the spaces Ned  
Malone and John Roxton had just occupied.   
  
"She understands, Malone," Assai said.  
  
****   
  
The two men materialised on a patch of green grass  
between twin oak trees. Nearby could be heard the rumble of motor  
vehicle traffic and soot and smoke of a unique odor filled the  
air.  
  
"Interesting way to travel," John Roxton mused as soon  
as he was able to speak.  
  
Ned Malone looked down and flexed his right hand.  
"Before we -formed here, did you see anything?"  
  
"Only darkness," Roxton shook his head. "You?"  
  
"I'm not sure. For a moment, I thought I saw..."  
  
"What?"  
  
Malone thought better of it and shook his head.  
"Nothing...where do you suppose we are this time?"  
  
"I'm not certain. Looks like..." Roxton's voice trailed  
off as the sound of a heavy, gonging bell began. Quickly reaching  
for his vest pocket, he drew out a gold pocket watch and listened  
intently as the bell sounded once, twice, then a third time.  
Roxton smiled.  
  
"We're back in London!" Roxton said, a smile forming on  
his lips. "That's Big Ben! We're home!"  
  
Malone glanced away, surveying the landscape around  
them. "This looks like Hyde Park..."  
  
"I think you're right..."  
  
"But are we in London before we left for the plateau  
or..."  
  
"I'm not certain," Roxton shook his head. He took a  
deep breath, offered Malone a slight smile. "I'd say we're in  
London, after the expedition left. The air smells different like  
coal smoke and diesel engine fumes."  
  
"Afterwards? How long afterwards?"   
  
Roxton thought that one over for a moment. "Now I'm  
beginning to wish Challenger were here!"  
  
"So what do we do?"  
  
Roxton looked his way. "A pint in a local pub would be  
nice!"  
  
Malone smiled for the first time since finding out  
about Veronica. "I'm not much of a drinker..."  
  
"Stick with me Malone, I'll make a pub crawler out of  
you in no time!"  
  
"Shall we?" Malone gestured.  
  
The two men began to walk, winding their way through  
the park land on a wide, crushed-river-stone walkway. Rounding a  
bend in the walk, a woman pushing a baby's pram stared curiously  
at them as they approached her.  
  
"What is she staring at?" Roxton asked, so only Malone  
could hear.  
  
"I imagine we must be a sight, walking through Hyde  
Park on a warm, sunny day armed to the teeth and looking like  
we've just fallen out of a nearby works project."  
  
Roxton contemplated that as the woman with the pram  
drew opposite of them.  
  
"Good afternoon madam. Lovely day, isn't it?" he  
inquired.   
  
"Lovely," she agreed and continued on, somewhat  
hurriedly Roxton thought.  
  
Roxton glanced back at her as they passed. "Scandalous,  
Malone! Did you see that dress she was wearing?! You could see  
her shins and ankles and the bodice was so tight it left nothing  
to the imagination!"  
  
"I didn't notice..." Malone said, beginning to slow his  
pace.  
  
"Well I certainly did!" Roxton said with a toothy  
smile. He was talking, trying to bring Malone out of the  
doldrums. The young man was obviously feeling the loss of  
Veronica and he didn't quite know what to say to brighten  
Malone's mood.  
  
"Roxton?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Malone stopped walking. "I don't have the slightest  
idea where we're going!"  
  
John Roxton laughed. "If we cut through here, we'll  
come out a short walk from this magnificent drinking  
establishment..."  
  
"You're the leader of this expedition; I'll follow  
you!" Malone said.  
  
At the next junction both men turned left onto a  
narrower walk. They followed it for a couple of hundred meters,  
until they came out at a large pond, surrounded by droopy boughed  
willow trees.  
  
"I don't remember this..."  
  
As though they were being drawn to the pond, Malone and  
Roxton turned and headed towards it.  
  
"I swear the last time I was here, this wasn't," Roxton  
said.  
  
"We seem to be the only ones...there's someone over  
there."  
  
Roxton followed Ned Malone's nod. Beside the pond, a  
wheelchair bound man sat, feeding a number of fussy ducks from a  
brown paper bag of bread crumbs. For just a moment Roxton thought  
there was something recognizable about the man...  
  
"I don't believe it!" Malone broke away from him and  
hurried to the seated man.  
  
"Malone!" John Roxton called after him.  
  
At the mention of the name 'Malone' the man in the  
wheelchair turned. There was a hint of instant recognition on his  
lined, well tanned face as he saw the two men.  
  
"Challenger?!" Malone called out as he ran to the man.  
  
"My word, it is!" Roxton said. He hurried to join  
Malone...  
  
"Challenger!!" Malone had dropped to one knee and  
physically embraced the older man.  
  
"Malone?" Challenger asked, eyes focused on the younger  
man.  
  
"Professor! Roxton, it's..."  
  
Roxton joined them, extended a hand to the seated  
Challenger. "George!" he said.  
  
Challenger beamed as he shook hands heartedly with  
Roxton. "The two people I never thought to see again!"  
  
"So we've heard!" Roxton mused.  
  
George Challenger met his eyes for a moment. "What are  
you talking about?"  
  
"We were back on the plateau. Assai told us we'd gone  
missing," Roxton said.  
  
"For over forty years!"  
  
"Forty years?!" Challenger queried. "I know time seemed  
to occasionally act strange there, but it hasn't been forty  
years!"  
  
Malone exchanged a quick look with Roxton. "Assai  
said..she was very old Challenger. She showed us  
Veronica's grave..."  
  
"Edward Malone, Veronica is every bit as alive as you  
are at this moment!" Challenger scolded.  
  
"George, we were back there. The tree-house was falling  
apart and mining operations were going on, on the plateau. The  
dinosaurs were all gone, hunted to extinction or carted off to  
zoos all over the world," Roxton said. "It wasn't a dream or  
hallucination, I assure you!"  
  
Challenger gave them a puzzled look. "If this were  
forty years later, I wouldn't be here."  
  
That stopped Roxton. "But we -were there..."  
  
"Perhaps you could tell me what happened when the two  
of you disappeared. The answer might lie there!" Challenger said.  
  
****  
  
Challenger listened patiently as Malone and Roxton told  
him their story, from beginning to end. After finishing, he sat  
for several minutes in silence, digesting what they'd just  
related.  
  
"This 'column of light' as you called it," he began.  
"You said it enveloped you in some type of cocoon..."  
  
Malone nodded. "Yes Professor. It was like being  
immersed in water, a kind of 'liquid light'. The cocoon was  
almost fluid, but once it had enveloped you, you couldn't get out  
of it."  
  
"Until you arrived at where it was taking you."  
  
Roxton gave Challenger a look. "'Taking us'?"  
  
"I'd say yes, taking you," George Challenger said. "You  
found the column of light, it 'enveloped' you and then you found  
yourself back at the tree-house forty years after you'd  
disappeared."  
  
"When it first touched me, I felt like..." Malone let  
the thought trail away.  
  
"What Malone?" Challenger pressed.  
  
"I felt like it was trying to tell me something."  
  
"Did you feel it too, John?"  
  
"No Professor," Roxton shook his head.  
  
"Malone, did you get a sense of 'intelligence' from the  
thing?"  
  
"I'm not certain," Malone shrugged. "I felt it was  
trying to communicate with me, so that means it has to be  
intelligent. Right?"  
  
"Maybe, maybe not," Challenger said.  
  
Another long silence stretched between them as  
Challenger mulled over what Malone had just said. "What I'm about  
to say is going to sound a bit far-fetched..."  
  
"After living on that plateau, far-fetched is beginning  
to sound highly probable!" Roxton offered.  
  
Challenger smiled. "There were several instances on the  
plateau where things involving time, appeared to 'short circuit'.  
The family from the 21st century in the 'heli-copter' and the  
village where Roxton and Marguerite were nearly hanged for being  
a highwayman and her consort, come immediately to mind."  
  
"As I remember it, the family in the heli-copter came  
through after a particularly powerful electrical storm and the  
village where Marguerite and I were almost hanged was on the  
other side of tunnel, near a crystal mountain," Roxton said.  
  
"Correct, but both instances had similar things in  
common. In the first instance it was the power of an electrical  
storm, while in the second it was this 'crystal mountain' acting  
as a locus..."  
  
"You mean electrical energy was the key to both?"  
Roxton asked.  
  
"Either that or supernatural powers were at work and  
I've spent far too long as a scientist to believe in such utter  
balderdash!"  
  
Roxton smiled. "This thing that Malone and I  
encountered; are you saying it's some type of doorway?"  
  
"Good for you, John!" Challenger laughed. "You did pay  
attention to the things I told you."  
  
"I tried Professor!"  
  
Malone looked at Challenger. "This doorway; first we  
were forty years in the future, now we're...when are we exactly?"  
  
"The year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and thirty-  
eight!"  
  
"So we're still in the future, only not as far as  
before," Malone said.  
  
George Challenger nodded. "Correct."  
  
"It sounds like you're saying we've become 'unstuck' in  
time," Roxton offered.  
  
"That is precisely what I'm saying," Challenger nodded  
again. "This 'doorway' the two of you have found has moved the  
both of you through time and space, two separate times..."  
  
"Why?"   
  
"And the larger question still; how do we get back to  
our own time?" Roxton asked.  
  
"I wish I had an answer for you on both counts..."  
  
"Are you saying we might not be able to get back to  
where we came from, Professor?" Malone asked.  
  
Challenger took a deep breath. "There is that  
possibility, but I think...my word, I wish I had read that paper  
a bit more thoroughly!"  
  
"What 'paper' George?" Roxton asked.  
  
"A physicist by the name of Einstein has postulated  
that time is like a rubber band..."  
  
"A rubber band?" Malone asked.  
  
"Yes. If you grasp a rubber band between the fingers of  
two hands and stretch it out, the rubber band lengthens,  
correct?"  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"No, it doesn't lengthen; the rubber band is the same  
size it always was but the space between the atoms of the rubber  
band, expands. You pull it and it stretches, but it's the same  
rubber band."  
  
"You mean it always returns to it's previous shape,"  
John Roxton said, feeling just a bit lost.  
  
"Precisely! Putting it simply, Einstein said in that  
paper that time and space would always return to where it began.  
Using the same rubber band analogy, if you pull it on one side  
and suddenly let go, it returns to that previous shape and size.  
His theory is that time and space will one day do the same, that  
eventually the universe will start to reverse back upon itself  
and end all that we know. Entropy is the word I believe. Or, if  
you need an example here in this world--we've all seen the old  
style moviolas, have we not, where you pay your money to see a  
hand cranked series of sequential photographs..."  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"Suppose time is like a moviola in that, when the  
series of photographs you're looking at is finished, it returns  
to where it started," Challenger said.  
  
"This is all getting a little beyond me George," Roxton  
said, giving voice to his doubts.  
  
"Not entirely so. What I'm trying to say is that time  
has a beginning, a middle, and an end, the same as each and every  
day..."  
  
"If that's the case, we should be able to find our way  
back..."  
  
"It's possible, but I think it's going to be a rather  
difficult proposition," Challenger said.  
  
Roxton frowned. "How so?"  
  
"Imagine time as a room, a room with one hundred doors  
in it. Now, imagine that each time you open one of those doors,  
you find another room with one hundred doors in it. Each time you  
open another door, you find the same thing..."  
  
"So it's both possible and impossible at the same  
time," Roxton said.  
  
Challenger stared silently at Roxton for a moment.  
"That's a very interesting premise..."  
  
"It is?"  
  
"Yes. You've said you were forty years in the future;  
now you're back here, which, in that time frame would be the  
past. The interesting part is, what if each one of those  
hypothetical doors we were talking about contained not only an  
alternate time frame, but an alternate reality as well!"  
Challenger enthused.  
  
"Like looking in a mirror," Malone said.  
  
"Of a sort," Challenger agreed. "A very large and  
infinite, looking-glass covering all of time and space itself..."  
  
"And we're only two small people on this cosmic canvas  
you've just painted," John Roxton said. "How the hell do we get  
back?"  
  
"The rubber band effect Einstein was talking about.  
You'll go as far as you can, all the while expending energy,  
which is never in infinite supply, until, you eventually snap  
back to where you came from!"  
  
"That could take -forever!" Malone said.  
  
Challenger laughed. "Traveling through time as you are,  
'forever' is a very relative term, Ned. Look at us, standing and  
sitting here in Hyde Park on this beautiful day. You and Roxton  
look the same as the day you disappeared, while I -I'm stuck more  
often than not in this damnable chair!"  
  
Roxton looked at him. "Why the chair George?"  
  
"I fell and broke my hip last month and the blasted  
thing doesn't want to heal properly!"  
  
"I notice you haven't let the hip or your age slow you  
down very much!" Roxton grinned.  
  
"My wife and nurses doing! My wife makes the nurse  
bring me here every afternoon, when the weather isn't foul. She  
says the sunlight will do me a world of good, but I think the  
real reason is that it gets me out of her hair for awhile!"  
  
Both Roxton and Malone laughed.  
  
"What are things like here Challenger?" Malone asked.  
  
"Not very much changed I'm afraid. Men are still men,  
governments still go to war over land and beliefs that do not  
jibe with their own. Damn fools all of them!!"  
  
"War, George?" Roxton asked.  
  
Challenger nodded. "On the continent now. Fascism, led  
by men wearing broken crosses on their black shirts. It'll come  
here soon enough, by terrible air machines, raining death down  
upon the city."  
  
"They wouldn't dare attack London!" Ned Malone said.  
  
"They would and they will," Challenger reiterated.  
  
"But war, so soon after the last one?" Roxton asked.  
"The 'War to End All Wars' they called it."  
  
Challenger gave a derisive laugh. "If there were only  
two men left standing upon the face of a decimated Earth, I'm  
sure they would find some disagreement over which to fight. It's  
the nature of the beast, I'm afraid."  
  
"Do you think they'll stop it?" Malone asked.  
  
"Eventually, as they do all wars. Millions of innocents  
will die, whole cities will perish in fire, but this one will end  
when the participants can't stomach it any longer!"  
  
"You're sounding like a pacifist, George!" Roxton  
teased.  
  
The older man smiled. "I have simply seen too many  
beautiful things in my years and can't for the life of me  
understand why we must keep killing one another over petty  
rivalries and territorial claims. I sometimes wonder if mankind  
as a species will survive long enough to live up to his  
potential!" Challenger shook his head, looked away. "Summerlee  
and I have had this argument dozens of times..."  
  
"Summerlee?! You mean he's here? In London?"  
  
"Where else would he be, Malone!" Challenger laughed.  
  
"The truly unbelievable part is they sit and have  
civilised discussions with one another!" Roxton said.   
  
"No one said a word about civilised, John!" Challenger  
hurrumped.  
  
Roxton laughed. "Assai said he just walked out of the  
forest one day. Did he ever say from where?"  
  
"Other than something about a blasted green house, he  
never said where he ended up after going over the falls..."  
  
"Perhaps he found another one of those doors you were  
talking about!" Roxton mused.  
  
"Perhaps so," Challenger nodded. "You said in the  
future line you visited, everything was changed on the  
plateau..."  
  
Malone nodded. "When we were there, large machines were  
working the earth, stripping away the raw materials. The animals  
were dead and Assai seemed to know she was looking at the end of  
her homeland."  
  
"But still she stayed..."  
  
"Where else would she go?" Malone faced him. "Her  
people died there, the woman she called and loved as a sister  
stayed behind when everyone else left..."  
  
"Did Assai say..."  
  
"She said some of the expeditions that came later, were  
not there strictly for scientific studies."  
  
Challenger closed his eyes, gave a brief nod. "I feared  
as much. When we returned here, I did my best to keep the  
plateaus location secret, but all it takes is one person talking  
out of turn..."  
  
"No one's blaming you George, least of all Assai,"  
Roxton said.  
  
"No, but perhaps she should have!"  
  
All three men fell silent as Challenger continued to  
feed the assorted water fowl circling lazily in front of him.  
  
"Have you heard anything from Marguerite?" Roxton  
asked, trying to be casual about it.  
  
Challenger glanced up at him and smiled. "I was  
wondering when you'd get around to that..."  
  
"Just curious, George!"  
  
Malone looked away, trying to hide a grin.  
  
"She was here in London until four no, five years ago.  
I'd see her every now and then at society functions..."  
  
"I imagine she fit right in!" Roxton said.  
  
"She did more than fit in, John!" Challenger related.  
"Marguerite came back with enough treasures to sit her up quite  
handsomely!"  
  
"Sounds like Marguerite all right!" Roxton shook his  
head. "So, how many people did it take to carry all of her booty  
off the plateau?"  
  
"Only four!"  
  
Roxton laughed. "And I imagine she watched every bauble  
like a hawk too!"  
  
Challenger smiled. "It was an amazing thing to watch  
actually. She knew every stone, ever article of jewelry..."  
  
"So where is she now?"  
  
"The last I heard, she was in Paris. It's difficult to  
tell with Marguerite, because she's not exactly the kind of  
person who stays put in one place for too long."  
  
"With good reason, most of the time!"  
  
"Roxton..."  
  
"Yes Malone?"  
  
"The -it's back."  
  
Roxton glanced down at Malone's right hand. The multi-  
colored tendril covered it and was spreading up his arm.  
  
"I think it's time for us to go, George," Roxton said.  
  
Challenger watched, fascinated as both men moved away  
from him. In seconds, their bodies were covered by separate  
columns of changing hued light.  
  
Inside one of the columns Ned Malone managed to raise  
his right hand. Challenger thought he saw a wave as both men   
winked out, leaving only brief puffs of air behind in their  
places.  
  
"Damn lucky, those two!" George Challenger said.   
  
He shook his head, then turned back to the fussy ducks,  
wishing he'd been twenty years younger so he could've gone with  
them. The one thing he couldn't figure out was how in the world   
he was going to tell Arthur Summerlee about what he'd seen that  
day in Hyde Park, without being locked away in an insane asylum  
for the rest of his life.  
  
George Challenger laughed and threw a handful of day-  
old bread crumbs to the ducks.   
  
****   
  
Ned Malone lost his balance and nearly fell as they  
materialised once more; John Roxton caught him by the shirt  
collar and held him upright until the brief spell of dizziness  
had passed.  
  
"You feeling all right?" Roxton asked.  
  
Malone nodded. "Roxton, this is strange..."  
  
"I'll grant you that..."  
  
"No...I mean yes, this is strange too..."  
  
"What are you trying to say Ned?"  
  
"Just before we materialised, I was somewhere else..."  
  
Roxton thought for a long moment. "I remember now...we  
were in a large glass and steel room, then we were here."  
  
"Wherever 'here'..." Malone took a long look at their  
surroundings; heavy block walls, cold stone floors, and, a few  
feet away, iron-barred doors leading into a corridor beyond.  
There was a second door at the top of a short flight of stairs,  
on the other side of the room. "This looks like a jail."  
  
"Marvelous!" Roxton said. "For someone who's led a life  
reasonably unsullied by crime, I sure do seem to find myself in  
enough of these places!"  
  
"This doesn't look like a cell. More like the jailers  
office..."  
  
"I think you may be right."  
  
"But why a jailers office?" Malone wanted to know.  
  
"To make up for past sins?" Roxton said.  
  
Malone smiled. "Let's take a look around and see what  
we find!"  
  
The two men spent almost fifteen minutes going through  
the office, trying to come up with something that would explain  
their inexplicable deposit there.  
  
John Roxton removed a clipboard from a hook behind a  
rather rickety looking desk and glanced at the top sheet. "I'm at  
a loss thus far!"  
  
Malone walked to the barred door. Grasping it with one  
hand and pulling, he was amazed to see it start to open. "Not a  
very secure lock up..."  
  
Roxton smiled, flipped to the next page on the  
clipboard. "As I remember it, we've broken out of a few in  
our..." His voice faded to silence in mid-sentence.  
  
"Roxton?" Malone noticed and turned back to him.  
"Roxton, what is it?"  
  
"Well, I'll be damned!"  
  
Malone frowned. "What did you just find?"  
  
"Have a look for yourself," Roxton crossed the room and  
handed the clipboard to Malone. "Three lines down from the  
top..."  
  
"I don't read German."  
  
"You don't need to know German. The name should be very  
familiar to you..."  
  
Malone found the line and read it aloud. "Marguerite  
Krux? Our Marguerite?!"  
  
"Oh, judging from the state of the accommodations, I'd  
say it's her!" Roxton nodded affirmatively.  
  
"Marguerite? Here?" Malone asked. "What do these words  
in parentheses beside her name say?"  
  
"I think it refers to a prisoner transfer order to  
something called the 'Gestapo'. My German isn't the best."  
  
"'Gestapo'?"  
  
"Don't ask me!" Roxton shrugged. "Looks like  
Marguerite's up to her old tricks..."  
  
"Only this time she got caught," Malone said.  
  
"You'd have thought she'd have perfected her technique  
a little better by now," Roxton said with a shake of his head.  
  
"We can't just leave her here..."  
  
Roxton sighed. "No, but every time she gets into a mess  
like this, we always have to get her out of it..."  
  
"Job security, old boy!" Malone grinned.  
  
"I suppose. I just wish..."  
  
Voices suddenly sounded from outside the door, at the  
top of the stairs.  
  
"Quick Malone, find a place to hide!" Roxton hissed.  
  
Each made themselves as small as possible as they took  
up positions to either side of the stairs. The door opened and  
two men entered. One was an older man dressed in a dove-gray  
colored uniform that appeared to be an officers, while the other  
wore darker gray, battle-field dress with corporals chevrons on  
his sleeve. The officer wore a sidearm in a black leather holster  
while the corporal carried an ominous looking short rifle with a  
long magazine in the front end, slung over one shoulder.  
  
The officer entered the room first, conversing with the  
corporal as they descended the stairs. Once at the bottom, he  
stood for a moment, clearly perplexed as to why the room was  
empty.  
  
The corporal glanced at the taller, older man, a frown  
on his face...  
  
John Roxton slid out from his hiding place, motioned  
for Ned Malone to do the same. Both men closed on the officer and  
corporal...  
  
Roxton reached out and tapped the officer on the  
shoulder. The man started to turn, but Roxton sent him to the  
floor with a single roundhouse punch.  
  
Malone dispatched the corporal with a blow to the back  
of the head with his .45.  
  
"You're quite good with that," Roxton offered to Malone  
as he gathered the officer's unconscious body into his arms.  
  
"I'm happy for once, not to be the one getting knocked  
in the head!" Malone said.  
  
Roxton laughed. "Come on, we've got some work to do."  
  
"What did you have in mind?"  
  
"Maybe we can get Marguerite out of this after-all,"  
Roxton mused. "You up for a little game of dress up?!"  
  
****  
  
John Roxton used his fingers to smooth down his hair,  
then pulled the high-peaked cap over it. Across from him Ned  
Malone was struggling into the corporal's jacket.  
  
"How do I look, Malone?"  
  
Malone finally got the top button closed. "I just hope  
this works..."  
  
"If it doesn't we'll know about it soon enough!"  
  
"If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you were  
enjoying this!"  
  
Roxton smiled. "I'll never let Marguerite live down the  
fact that I rescued her..."  
  
"But it won't even have occurred, if we get back to  
where we're supposed to be," Malone answered.  
  
"But the memory will always be in here!" Roxton tapped  
his head. "I hope..."  
  
Malone nodded, then looked down at the dark gray  
corporal's uniform. "So what are we?"  
  
"German, for certain. The uniform I'm wearing appears  
to belong to a Colonel. The rest of the marking's I'm unfamiliar  
with..."  
  
Malone glanced at a small pin on one collar of the  
corporal's jacket. "Didn't Challenger say something about the  
people who started the war wearing 'broken crosses on their black  
shirts'? This pin looks like a broken cross to me."  
  
John Roxton nodded. "The German's again though? The  
Versailles Treaty forbid them to re-arm at the end of the war..."  
  
"Treaties are only as good as the ideals they set  
forth. If you don't believe in something, it's rather easy to  
discount it," Malone answered.  
  
Roxton took a deep breath. "I suppose. Are you ready?"  
  
Malone slid a cap over his own head. "What are we going  
to do?"  
  
"Play it by ear. I'd be willing to bet that if  
Marguerite's being transferred out of here, they'd send along a  
Colonel to do it!"  
  
"And a platoon of men with him, if they're wise!"  
Malone said.  
  
Roxton walked to the barred door. He opened it.   
  
"Roxton?"  
  
"Hmm?" he was peering down the corridor, trying to see  
what was there.  
  
"How good is your German?"  
  
"It's been awhile but we might get by..."  
  
"And if they ask me something?"  
  
Roxton looked at him. "Just look self important and  
like you can't be bothered with their questions! It seemed to  
work well enough for the biplane pilot on the plateau that time!"  
  
  
****   
  
Ahead of them, three uniformed men were gathered around  
a table, talking animatedly amongst themselves. One of the three  
men let out a 'whoop' and Roxton could see cards and money on the  
table.  
  
A plan began to form in his mind. He motioned for Ned  
Malone to follow as he slid in beside one of the men around the  
table. The soldier who'd let out the 'whoop' was raking in a  
rather large pot and was in mid laugh when he saw the officers  
uniform. The smile went away instantly and he flew to attention.  
  
"Attention!!" the soldier bellowed.  
  
His two comrades stood up so quickly that one hit the  
table and nearly sent it over on it's side. Roxton smiled,  
inwardly.  
  
"Colonel, I can explain!"  
  
Roxton thought his words through carefully. "Explain  
why you are away from your post, leaving the way down this  
corridor unguarded?!"  
  
The soldier swallowed nervously. "Yes sir!"  
  
Roxton did a slow walk around the three men, looking  
each of them up and down.  
  
He stopped in front of the soldier he'd addressed  
previously and stared at him.  
  
"Colonel, do you want an explanation?"  
  
"Did I ask for one?!"  
  
"No sir!"  
  
"Private..."  
  
"It's Corporal, sir. Corporal Joachim Richter..."  
  
"Corporal?" Roxton offered him an icy smile.  
"Perhaps..."  
  
Richter swallowed again. "Yes Colonel!"  
  
"Is the prisoner ready to go?" Roxton asked.  
  
"Prisoner sir?"  
  
"The Krux woman, you imbecile!!"  
  
"Yes Colonel!" one of the others piped in. "She's ready  
to go!"  
  
"Then perhaps one of you could go get her for me, while  
the day is young?"  
  
"I'll need to see the transfer orders, sir!"  
  
Roxton moved in on him. "What was that?"  
  
"The--the transfer orders..."  
  
"After what I've seen here, you ask me for the transfer  
orders!"  
  
"Y -yes sir!"  
  
Roxton stared into the corporal's blue eyes. "And if I  
refuse to let you see those orders..."  
  
"I -I will have to report you to my superiors, sir!"  
  
"And what do you think your superiors would say about  
your little 'game' here?" Roxton asked. He could see Malone  
fidgeting behind him, searching inside the gray jacket.  
  
"They would be...very unhappy, Colonel!"  
  
"Who am I, private?"  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"The question is simple enough; who am I?"  
  
"Gestapo, Colonel!"  
  
"And the Krux woman is being transferred to whom?"  
  
"The Gestapo, Colonel!"  
  
Malone pulled a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket  
and passed them to Roxton. Roxton glanced at them long enough to  
see that they were the transfer orders; disappointed, he passed  
them to the red faced corporal.  
  
"Very good Corporal; maybe I will forget this little  
'incident'?"  
  
"Yes Colonel!" the Corporal Richter fired off a brisk  
salute and turned to his two comrades without looking at the  
transfer orders. "What are the two of you waiting for GO GET  
HER!!"  
  
Both men rushed off.  
  
'So far so good!' Roxton thought as a smile played  
across his lips.  
  
"Something Colonel?" the corporal asked, seeing it.  
  
"This is rather boring duty, isn't it?" Roxton asked,  
casually.  
  
"We do what the Fuhrer commands, Colonel..."  
  
"Yes Corporal, we do..."  
  
Behind the corporal Roxton saw movement. The two guards  
who had gone off were returning with a third person between them,  
a person in disheveled clothes and with a black cloth hood  
covering their head and face. For the entire length of the  
corridor the person between the two guards kicked and pulled and  
did their level best to make the guard's task as difficult as  
possible.  
  
Roxton smiled. "Marguerite all right!" he muttered  
under his breath.  
  
The two guards arrived with their struggling prisoner.  
  
"Corporal, what is the meaning of this hood?" Roxton  
asked.  
  
"We keep her face covered sir because twice before,  
while being moved, she used objects around her against her  
guards. Two men were injured."  
  
"And the reason for the gag in her mouth?" Roxton asked  
as Marguerite protested under the hood.  
  
"Her teeth sir. She bites!"  
  
Roxton had to work hard to suppress a smile. "Uncover  
this she-demon and let me see her face."  
  
"You heard the Colonel -quickly!!" Corporal Richter  
ordered.  
  
One of the guards pulled the mask back from her face,  
revealing an older, though still stunning Marguerite Krux.  
Marguerite squinted into the light, trying to see who was  
standing in front of her.  
  
Roxton reached out and roughly cupped her chin with his  
right hand. "My, my! Such spirit!"  
  
Marguerite's eyes blazed and for a moment Roxton  
thought she was about to haul off and kick him. Marguerite's eyes  
fixed on him for a brief second and sudden recognition filled  
those same eyes.  
  
"And she's said nothing?" Roxton asked.  
  
"Nothing Colonel!" the Corporal replied. "I think the  
Gestapo will get the information they need from her, will they  
not Colonel?"  
  
"Assuredly!" Roxton nodded. Marguerite's eyes were  
fixed on him like she'd just seen a dead man. "Re-cover her  
face."  
  
"Will you need assistance with the prisoner, Colonel?"  
one of the other guards asked.  
  
Roxton faced Malone. "If she attempts anything, knock  
her down and carry her."  
  
Malone spoke the only words of German he knew. "Yes  
sir!"  
  
Roxton returned his gaze to the three guards. "I will  
forget what's happened here today..."  
  
"Yes Colonel!!"  
  
Roxton seized Marguerite's right arm and started away  
from the three guards.  
  
"Colonel?!"  
  
He took a deep breath, stopped and looked back. "Yes  
Corporal?!"  
  
"Heil Hitler!!"  
  
Roxton watched the salute the three men gave him and  
repeated it. Without another word, he turned and drew Marguerite  
quickly down the corridor and through the door. Once inside the  
jailer's office he pushed the door closed and let out a long, low  
whistle.  
  
"That went well!" Malone offered, picking up their gear  
from behind the desk.  
  
"Except for the fact that I was pissing bullets..."  
  
"What now?"  
  
"A hasty exit is called for!" Roxton said, accepting  
his pack, guns and balled up clothes from Malone.   
  
With Marguerite between them, Malone and Roxton went up  
the short run of stairs, through the door and out into a second,  
longer corridor.  
  
"Which way?" Malone asked.  
  
"Mmff phfft..." Marguerite said through the gag she  
wore.   
  
Roxton glanced around until he saw a chair sitting a  
few feet away. He went to the chair, pushed it back to the door.  
Tilting it back, he forced the top under the door release and  
wedged it firmly into place.  
  
"That ought to slow them down, just in case our little  
ruse is found out!"  
  
Marguerite suddenly let out a shrill cry and stamped  
both feet onto the stone floor.  
  
"I think she wants to say something," Malone said.  
  
"I don't know I kind of like her like this!" Roxton  
smiled.  
  
Marguerite replied with a curse that Roxton would have  
found an impossibility, but was quite understandable, even  
through the gag.  
  
He reached forward and pulled the hood from her head  
and tossed it away.  
  
"Hello Marguerite! If you promise to be a good girl,  
I'll remove the gag!"  
  
The look she gave him would've killed had it been a  
weapon.  
  
Roxton untied the gag and tossed it with the hood;  
Marguerite opened and closed her mouth several times and spat  
onto the floor.  
  
"As ladylike as ever..."  
  
"Roxton, Malone: what are you doing here?!"  
  
"Rescuing you," Roxton advised.  
  
"I haven't seen either one of you in -in...and now  
you're here? How?" Marguerite asked.  
  
"It's a little complicated..." Roxton said.  
  
"That's an understatement!" Malone shook his head.  
  
"What's going on? And where did you get those  
uniforms?!"  
  
"From a couple of very unhappy customers who are going  
to be wanting them back if we don't get a move on!" Roxton  
answered. "Do you know the way out of here?"  
  
Marguerite made a face. "You've come to rescue me and  
don't know where the front door is?"  
  
"Marguerite..."  
  
"To the right," Marguerite said. "There's another  
checkpoint further on, then a long flight of stairs to the  
outside."  
  
"Good!" Roxton nodded. "Shall we!"  
  
"Malone, walk behind me with the gun at my back.  
Roxton, stay on my left and grasp my arm while we walk..."  
  
Roxton and Malone did as Marguerite said and began to  
walk along the corridor.  
  
"I have to say, you two are the last people on this  
Earth I ever expected to see," Marguerite said as they trudged  
along.  
  
"It was a bit surprising finding you here too,  
Marguerite!" Roxton said.  
  
She glanced at him, a frown on her face. "The two of  
you hardly look changed..."  
  
"That's because we're not," Malone answered.  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"Well, according to Challenger, Roxton and I are  
'unstuck' in time!"   
  
"You're what?" Marguerite asked.  
  
"We're not exactly sure ourselves," Malone shrugged.  
"We ran into something when we went to get the kialoma leaves and  
we've been bouncing from one reality to the next, ever since!"  
  
"I don't know why that doesn't surprise me," Marguerite  
sighed. "I always said there was more going on there on that  
plateau than met the eye!"  
  
"I don't remember you saying that," Roxton shook his  
head.  
  
"That's because I said it to myself!"  
  
John Roxton smiled. "So how did you end up here?" he  
asked, almost casually.  
  
"You say that as though I should be used to it by now!"  
  
"If the shoe fits..."  
  
"Roxton, Marguerite!" Malone hissed. "The guards!"  
  
Ahead of them was another guard post with two very  
efficient looking men manning it. Both men turned as one as they  
approached.  
  
"Good afternoon, Colonel," one of the men said.  
  
"The prisoner, Marguerite Krux..."  
  
The man nodded. "We will be glad to be rid of her! My  
men will be happy to be free of the headaches she caused us!"  
  
"She is the Gestapo's 'headache' now!" Roxton chuckled.  
  
The man smiled, nodded at the packs and extra weapons  
both Roxton and Malone carried. "Wherever did all this come  
from?"  
  
"Her gear," Roxton offered. "The weapons were captured  
from various troops and will be added to my personal collection."  
  
The man seemed satisfied with Roxton's answer and  
nodded. "Heil Hitler!"  
  
"Heil Hitler!" Roxton answered back, with a quick  
salute.  
  
Roxton, Malone, and Marguerite continued past the guard  
station and up the longer flight of stairs to the outside. The  
day was hot and dry, even in the shade. Roxton saw they were  
surrounded by tall, pale-yellow, sandstone walls...  
  
"Where are we?"  
  
"You don't know?"  
  
"I didn't exactly have time to ask, Marguerite!"  
  
"The staff car," she nodded towards a tan coloured,  
four wheeled vehicle and started towards it.  
  
"We're taking this?" Malone asked.  
  
"We're in the middle of the Libyan desert 100 miles  
from the coast; we're taking this unless you want to walk..."  
Marguerite informed them.  
  
"Roxton, do you know how to drive?" Malone asked.  
  
Roxton looked at him. "I was hoping you..."  
  
"Oh for pity's sake!" Marguerite said. "Don't tell me  
neither one of you can drive a car!"  
  
"I was born and raised in the city!" Malone answered,  
defensively. "I took the subway whenever I needed to go  
anywhere!"  
  
"We had a car on the estate but someone always drove  
me," Roxton replied.  
  
"I can't believe we've made it this far, only..."  
Marguerite halted in mid-sentence. "Malone, I'll be needing that  
uniform!"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"You want to get out of here alive?"  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"The uniform please..."  
  
"Very well," Malone said.  
  
Marguerite turned to face John Roxton. "I'll be needing  
the handcuff keys..."  
  
"'Keys'?"  
  
"Yes," Marguerite nodded. She held his eyes for a  
moment, frowned. "Please tell me you have key for these things."  
  
"I -guess in all the excitement..."  
  
Marguerite looked heavenwards. "This just keeps getting  
better! Come on Lord Roxton, let's see if we can get these things  
off while Ned get's out of the uniform."  
  
****   
  
"Marguerite, we keep messing about here the guards are  
going to find us!" John Roxton said, trying to keep his voice  
down.  
  
Marguerite Krux looked at him all smiles. "Is that a  
touch of alarm I hear in your voice, Lord Roxton?"  
  
"Not alarm; common sense!"  
  
Marguerite opened a door, ducked inside for a moment.  
Roxton heard her fumble around, mutter a sharp curse under her  
breath. When she came back out she carried a heavy looking, very  
sharp, short axe.  
  
"The key..." she said.  
  
Roxton took the axe from her, hefted it in his right  
hand. "This ought to be old hat to us by now!"  
  
"It should! We escaped from enough of them, back on the  
plateau!" Marguerite nodded. "You know, we'd all given you up for  
dead..."  
  
"So I've heard," Roxton said. He took a quick survey of  
the area, then nodded at the stone wall a few feet away. "Drape  
the chain across the sharpest edge of the stone and pull it tight  
between both hands."  
  
Marguerite did as asked. "When you didn't come back..."  
  
"I've heard the story Marguerite! Now hold very  
still..."  
  
Roxton brought the axe back.  
  
"Roxton?"  
  
He stopped in mid-swing, made a face. "What?"  
  
"It is nice seeing you again!"  
  
"We can exchange pleasantries later," Roxton answered.  
He lined up the chain with the axe blade and started to draw it  
back again.  
  
"Don't miss..."  
  
"My aim is always true..."  
  
The axe whacked against the chain with a din that  
Roxton thought sure would draw every guard in the place down on  
them, but the chain separated and no guards appeared.  
  
Marguerite moved her arms back and forth several times,  
then offered Roxton a smile. "I'd almost forgotten what it was  
like to be unchained!"  
  
Roxton started to say something, but thought better of  
it. "You ready to get out of here now?"  
  
"Not entirely..."  
  
"What do you mean 'not entirely'..."  
  
"I want to give the Nazis something to remember me by!"  
  
"Nazis?"  
  
"The regime in Germany that started this whole  
thing..."  
  
"Headed by someone named 'Hitler'?"  
  
Marguerite nodded. "There's a fuel dump close by."  
  
"And what do you suggest we do about this 'fuel dump'?"  
  
"Why blow it up of course!"  
  
"Marguerite..."  
  
"This is one of the main re-fueling centers in this  
zone. If we destroy what fuel there is here, it'll put a crimp in  
the Nazis plans for at least several weeks!" Marguerite said.  
  
"Why is nothing ever easy with you?" Roxton asked.  
  
"Nothing good, is ever easy..."  
  
"If we blow up this fuel dump, won't it kill the other  
prisoners?"  
  
"There are no other prisoners," Marguerite said. "When  
I was captured, they brought me here until the Gestapo could  
arrange for my transportation...there's only a minimum of troops  
here and as you saw, most of them are dying of boredom!"  
  
"An entire jail to yourself; I'm impressed!"  
  
Marguerite smiled. "Let's grab Malone and see what kind  
of fireworks display we can put on for my former captors!"  
  
****  
  
Fifty gallon barrels of gasoline and fuel oil were  
stacked ten high and at least twenty rows deep. While Marguerite  
worked on one side of the fuel dump, John Roxton removed the caps  
from a half dozen barrels of gasoline and turned them over.  
Nearby, Ned Malone watched for patrols, the 'submachine gun' at  
the ready.  
  
Marguerite rejoined Malone by the staff car, her long  
dark hair stuffed under the Gestapo Corporal's cap.  
  
"Roxton?! Roxton, come on!!"  
  
"Keep your knickers..."  
  
"We've got exactly three minutes to get clear!" she  
said, trying to urge him to move faster.  
  
"Three minutes?" he frowned. "Marguerite, what did you  
just do?" Roxton appeared, two eleven gallon cans of gasoline in  
hand.  
  
She opened the door of the staff car and shoved the  
seat forward so he could get in. "Three minutes is how long I set  
the timer on the satchel charge for..."  
  
"What's a 'satchel charge'?" Malone asked.  
  
"Bad news!" Roxton answered. He had barely gotten the  
gas cans inside the vehicle and seated when Marguerite had the  
engine started and the staff car moving. He and Malone were  
tossed about the vehicle as Marguerite drove them quickly through  
the narrow streets inside the prison complex.  
  
"The gate's just ahead!" she yelled back to Roxton and  
Malone.  
  
At the gate, sentries saw them coming and waved for the  
car to slow down. Marguerite accelerated, aiming the car for the  
center of the gate. Seeing that the car wasn't about to slow  
down, the sentries dove for cover; the car burst through the gate  
and out onto the road beyond.  
  
Behind them the sentries had regained their feet and  
were firing long bursts of automatic weapons fire after the staff  
car. Marguerite ordered the two men in the back-seat down, slid  
the car sideways into a four wheel drift as it fought for  
traction on the hard packed, oil-sand road.  
  
They felt the explosion before they heard it, even  
through the staff cars suspension. Accelerating away from the  
prison, Marguerite threw up her right hand and extended a single,  
middle-finger, skywards.  
  
John Roxton glanced at Ned Malone, eyes wide, and  
stayed down.  
  
****  
  
The dark clouds of acrid, black-smoke from the  
destroyed fuel dump could be seen from five miles away.  
Marguerite Krux stared at the smoke, a smile on her lips. Behind  
her, Roxton was shedding the Gestapo Colonel's uniform, while  
Malone watched the smoke with her.   
  
"That was enjoyable!" Malone offered.  
  
Marguerite smiled. "Very!"  
  
"Can I ask you a question Marguerite?"  
  
"After all this time, why not?"  
  
"Why were you in there?"  
  
Marguerite faced him. "I got a little too close to  
something I shouldn't have. When I was found, the German's wanted  
to know what I was up to..."  
  
"And what exactly were you 'up to' Marguerite?" Roxton  
called from behind them.  
  
"John Roxton, I'm appalled that you'd think..."  
  
"You forget, I've known you for some time now!" Roxton  
said. "What was it, a gold bullion shipment, maybe some priceless  
work of art?"  
  
"If you must know, I was doing it for England!"  
  
"England?!" Roxton laughed. "You?!"  
  
"This is war..."  
  
"So it is, but the question remains: What's in it for  
you?"  
  
Marguerite looked back at him, a look of sudden hurt in  
her deep eyes. She started to reply, thought better of  
it...Marguerite turned and walked away.  
  
Roxton realized he'd touched a nerve, let out a long  
sigh. "Damn!" Sliding the vest over his shoulders, he walked past  
a watching Malone.  
  
"I'll fuel the car up while you talk to her," Malone  
said.  
  
Roxton nodded.  
  
Marguerite had stopped a few meters in front of the  
staff car and seemed to be in a world of her own as Roxton joined  
her there.  
  
"Marguerite, I'm sorry..."  
  
She shook her head. "No reason to be."  
  
"Sometimes I -I say things without thinking."  
  
"You really don't have to apologise," she said. "My  
motives haven't always been the purest, in the past. Hell, you,  
Malone, and the others saw it quite frequently!"  
  
"But that still doesn't give me the right to hurt you."  
  
Marguerite turned to face him, a touch of a smile on  
her lips. "I was counting on you being there, you know?"  
  
"'Being there'?"  
  
"When we got off the plateau," she answered. "I often  
wondered, what would happen, once we got back to civilisation.  
Would I go back to my old ways, would you become Lord John  
Roxton, playboy of the British Empire all over again?"  
  
Roxton managed a smile of his own. "With the right  
incentive..."  
  
Marguerite reached out and stroked his cheek. "I guess  
we'll never get to know for certain, will we? So much time  
gone..."  
  
Roxton grasped her hand and brought her palm to his  
lips. "You and I are a strange pair Marguerite...we care about  
one another, but like Malone and Veronica, we could never seem to  
find the words to tell each other how we felt..."  
  
"It was always easier to hide behind the little asides  
and the teasing. I think if we both ever admitted how we truly  
felt, the tree-house would've fallen down around our ears!"  
  
Roxton kissed the palm of her hand, looked up to meet  
her eyes. "One of the places Malone and I have been was back to  
the plateau, 40 years in the future. Everything's gone, the  
animals, the forest is being sawn and removed, the ground  
excavated for it's mineral wealth..."  
  
Marguerite met and held his gaze.  
  
"It was -I never thought I'd admit that I missed the  
place, that I missed the good times you and I and the others had  
there..."  
  
"Veronica stayed behind when we..."  
  
"Assai was the only one left," Roxton said. "She -she  
took us to Veronica's grave..."  
  
"Ned?"  
  
"He regrets never telling her he loved her," Roxton  
said. He moved closer to Marguerite, still holding her hand. "I  
don't want to make the same mistake..."  
  
"John..."  
  
Roxton caught her lips with his own and slowly kissed  
her. Marguerite melted against him, wanting to give in to the  
heat of the rising passion the two shared. Trembling, she allowed  
herself to be kissed, then returned it with a vigor, equal to his  
own.  
  
Marguerite broke the kiss to breathe.  
  
"Marguerite..." Roxton started.  
  
She silenced him with a second, longer kiss, one that  
had him drawing away to catch a breath.  
  
"Roxton!" Ned Malone called.  
  
Roxton turned to face Malone; Malone was standing,  
empty gas-can in hand, enveloped in the shifting miasma of  
colored light.  
  
"Oh my God, what is that?" Marguerite asked.  
  
"A damned bloody inconvenience is what it is!" Roxton  
said. "That's our ride, I'm afraid."  
  
"But, I don't want you to go...not now!"  
  
Roxton smiled. "The great thing about bouncing around  
through time like this, is that this probably won't be the last  
time I see you..."  
  
"But for how long?" Marguerite asked.  
  
"An eye-blink or two..."  
  
Marguerite kissed him again, fiercely, a kiss meant to  
make him want to stay with her, a kiss holding a thousand dreams  
and a thousand promises of things to come.  
  
Roxton felt the cool tendril of light on his skin and  
reluctantly pulled away from her.  
  
"Please, don't go..."  
  
"I promise, I will see you again Marguerite!" Roxton  
said.  
  
Marguerite watched the iridescent light sweep over him.   
  
"John, I..."  
  
"I love you too, Marguerite!" he said, his voice dying  
on the wind as both he and Ned Malone vanished.  
  
Marguerite Krux stood in the middle of the silent  
desert, staring into the empty spaces the two men had just  
occupied.  
  
"I love you, John Roxton," she said to the silence, a  
single tear streaming down her left cheek.  
  
****  
  
Dust from rich red earth formed around his feet as  
Edward Malone formed into existence in yet another time and  
place. Letting out a breath, he leaned forward, resting both  
hands upon his knees.  
  
"Roxton, I'm suddenly very tired," he said. "I don't  
know if it has something to do with all this time jumping or  
what, but I feel like I could sleep for a week!"  
  
There was no answer from his colleague and traveling  
companion, through time.  
  
"Roxton?" Malone called again. He turned first to his  
left, then to his right; no one was there. "Roxton?"  
  
Malone frowned. The three previous times they had  
shifted in time, both men had materialised together. This time  
however, Ned Malone appeared to be by himself.  
  
"Roxton?" he called again, a little more loudly than  
before.   
  
Malone chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Where on  
Earth..."  
  
It was then that he heard the sound; mechanical, raspy,  
and getting closer. Looking behind him, Malone found he was  
standing in the middle of a road cut through a low, flat plain,  
with waist-high, golden-colored grasses bordering it.   
  
The noise was almost on top of him and he picked out  
something billowing dust from behind it, approaching. In the  
shimmering heat, it was difficult to see what it was until it was  
within a quarter of a mile or less of where he stood. It was a  
vehicle, a small truck of some kind, speeding along the narrow  
dirt road directly towards him.  
  
Malone stood hastily to one side, watched as the  
vehicle began to slow. It drew near him, then pulled to a stop.  
  
"Good afternoon!" a heavily accented voice called from  
the truck.  
  
"Afternoon," Malone answered back.  
  
"You're Malone?" the voice asked.  
  
"How did you..."  
  
"It's all right mate!" the man called from inside the  
truck. "We were told to expect you!"  
  
Malone frowned again. "You were?"  
  
"Yeah. The old man's been talking about you for a  
week!"  
  
"What 'old man'?"  
  
"Lord Roxton of course!"  
  
"Roxton?! I thought I'd lost him!" Malone said, a smile  
cutting his features.  
  
"Not yet, mate!" the truck driver laughed. "Come on,  
get in and I'll take you to him!"  
  
Malone fumbled with the mechanism for the truck's door,  
not quite sure how to open it. Inside, the driver leaned across  
the seat and opened it for him.  
  
"There you go!"  
  
"Thank you!" Malone climbed in, slamming the door  
closed.  
  
The driver shifted into gear and the truck began to  
move, picking up speed very quickly.  
  
"We'll be there in about fifteen minutes!" the driver  
said over the engine noise.  
  
"Can I ask a question that's going to sound just a  
little bit ridiculous?" Malone faced him.  
  
"Fire away, guv!"  
  
"Where are we?!"  
  
The driver laughed, gave him a quick shake of the head.  
"We're in Rhodesia Mr. Malone..."  
  
"Rhodesia? Isn't that in Africa?"  
  
"Southern Africa, yes!" the driver said, with a hint of  
pride in his voice.  
  
"And you're taking me to John Roxton?!"  
  
"Yep!"  
  
Malone nodded, perplexed. The way the truck driver was  
sounding, Roxton had been in Rhodesia for quite some time but  
Malone had just been with him in Libya not more than...Malone  
glanced at his watch.  
  
"A little before three o'clock," he said aloud. "It  
was -it was three when we were in London, seeing Challenger  
too..."  
  
Malone sat back, wondering how things had so utterly  
changed.  
  
****  
  
The truck pulled to a stop in front of a single story  
block home, with a thatched roof and a sweeping porch along the  
front. Stone steps led up to the porch and to a single, large  
double-door that stood open to the day.  
  
"Here we are Mr. Malone!" the driver said. "Go right  
inside; he's expecting you!"  
  
Malone glanced at the driver. "I don't understand  
this..."  
  
"I found it a bit hard to believe when John told me the  
first time myself!"  
  
Malone nodded, climbed down out of the truck. As soon  
as he'd closed the truck's door, the driver took off, leaving him  
alone at the base of the steps leading up to the front porch of  
the house.  
  
Malone climbed the steps, stood for a moment at the  
front door. He raised his hand to knock, held it.  
  
"Hello? Anybody here?"  
  
"Come in, Ned!" a voice (Roxton's) called from inside  
the house.   
  
Malone entered, squinting as he tried to see.  
  
"Roxton?"  
  
"Over here!" the man's voice called.  
  
It took Malone's eyes a moment to adjust to the darker  
interior of the house, but as they did, he picked out someone  
seated in a chair across the room from the front door.  
  
"Roxton!?"  
  
The man stood from his chair, walked slowly over and  
extended a hand to Malone. "Glad to see you could make it!"  
  
Malone stared, open-mouthed at the man in front of him;  
though clearly John Roxton, he was much older. Malone guessed the  
Roxton who'd met him inside the house was at least in his early  
to mid 60's, with snow white hair and skin burnished a rich  
bronze by many years of intense sun.  
  
"You can close your mouth Malone; it is me!" John  
Roxton smiled.  
  
"I don't -I don't believe it! We were just in -I  
mean..."  
  
Roxton met his eyes. "And I'll bet it only seemed a  
moment or so ago, didn't it?"  
  
Malone nodded.  
  
"Where were we, just now?"  
  
"Libya..."  
  
Roxton chuckled. "Where we rescued Marguerite from the  
clutches of the Nazis..."  
  
Malone narrowed his gaze. "That's not all we did  
there..."  
  
"No, it's not! We also blew up a fuel depot, got shot  
at by the sentries at the front gate and nearly got killed by  
Marguerite's driving..."  
  
"How did..."  
  
"It is me, Ned. A little older and not nearly as spry,  
but it is me!" Roxton said.  
  
"But you were just with me. When I materialised here,  
you were gone..."  
  
"Actually, I was already here!" Roxton grinned. "Right  
where I've been for the past 30 years!"  
  
Malone shook his head. "I don't understand..."  
  
"What do you remember after we left Marguerite in North  
Africa?"  
  
"Not much..."  
  
"Do you remember being in London and talking to  
Challenger?"  
  
Malone nodded. "That was before Marguerite."  
  
"I know. Remember he talked about doors?"  
  
"Yes! He said something about imagining space and time  
as like a room with one hundred doors in it. Each time you opened  
one of those doors, you'd find another room with one hundred  
doors in it..."   
  
"This is my door!" Roxton said, simply.  
  
"What are you..."  
  
"Hundreds, thousands of doors, each with a different  
reality!"  
  
Malone stared at him for a long moment. "So this is...  
real?"  
  
"Of course it's real!"  
  
Malone noticed Roxton's extended hand, reached out and  
grasped it with his own. Roxton's handshake was strong, steady,  
belying his age.  
  
"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to shake  
hands with me!" Roxton joked. "It's wonderful to see you again!"  
  
Malone managed a smile. "How long..."  
  
"The last time was twenty-two years ago, when I was  
first setting up this research station."  
  
"Research?"  
  
Roxton nodded. "After I saw what had happened to the  
plateau, I wanted to do something to try and prevent it from  
happening anywhere else. At no small cost to me, I set up this  
animal research station. It hasn't been easy, but I like to think  
some of the things we've done here have made a difference!"  
  
"This is a switch! When I first met you, you were an  
avid hunter..."  
  
"Oh, I still like a good hunt, but more often than not  
it's tracking the poachers who kill elephants for their ivory,  
the big cats for their skins, or the rhino for it's horn. It's a  
lot more interesting, truth be known, tracking something that is  
just as intelligent as you and is just as likely to shoot back;  
I've gotten quite good at it too!"  
  
"The driver who picked me up, said you were expecting  
me..."  
  
"Yes, I have been."  
  
"Why have you been expecting me?"  
  
Roxton looked away briefly. "I was hoping to get the  
chance to say good-bye..."   
  
Malone met his gaze. "Good bye?"  
  
The older man smiled. "One of the troubles with jumping  
through time the way we are -er, were, is that you tend to find  
out certain things. Marriages, births..."  
  
"Deaths?"  
  
Roxton nodded. "Precisely. In one of our journeys, I  
witnessed my own -'entropy' I think Challenger called it."  
  
"I suppose that makes planning for events a little  
easier..."  
  
John Roxton let out a loud laugh. "It does indeed!"  
  
Malone smiled. "You don't seem to mind knowing the date  
of your demise all that much!"  
  
"Why should I, Ned," Roxton said. "I've lived a long,  
full life! I'm surrounded by friends, family, and colleagues and  
one of the men I shared many adventures with has come to pay me a  
last visit! My only regrets are that Summerlee, Challenger, and  
Veronica aren't here as well..."  
  
Malone looked away. "Veronica..."  
  
Roxton reached out and clapped a hand on Malone's right  
shoulder. "I know you probably don't have very much time here..."  
  
"From what you've described, I have nothing but time,"  
Malone said. "Backwards and forwards, again and again..."  
  
"A choice you made when we parted all those years ago,  
Ned," Roxton said.  
  
Malone frowned. "I don't..."  
  
"When I decided to stay here, I made the offer to you  
to join me. You seemed quite content to venture through time and  
space for a bit more, the 'ultimate adventure' you called it."  
  
"But, I don't remember that..."  
  
"In your present time frame, it probably hasn't  
occurred as yet..."  
  
Malone nodded. "Maybe the next time I pop in somewhere,  
I should stop by a library and do a little reading on physics!"  
  
Roxton laughed again. "It probably wouldn't hurt!"  
  
"How did I know to come here?" Malone asked.  
  
"I'm not entirely certain. I had a conversation with  
Challenger once and he seemed to think time was like a river,  
flowing with currents, ripples, things of that nature. The way he  
put it to me was that certain events in the time stream are set  
in stone and they draw you to them, time after time..."  
  
"We're born, grow old, and die..."  
  
"Precisely! Those dates don't change from time frame to  
time frame. My death is imminent, so the time 'river' knew to  
deposit you here, even though you haven't technically been here  
before today in this time line!"  
  
"This is as confusing as..."  
  
"Excuse me, Grand-pa-pa?" a very soft, female voice  
called.  
  
Malone turned as Roxton looked past him. A young woman  
of no more than ten was standing in the doorway, regarding them  
with a curious look.  
  
"I hope I am not interrupting anything..." the girl  
said.  
  
"Of course you aren't, Marguerite!" Roxton beamed. He  
walked towards the girl, extended his arms out to her. "What is  
it, sweetheart?"  
  
"Heath said you had a visitor, someone he picked up  
from the road..."  
  
"Yes, I do indeed have a visitor!" Roxton said. "Ned  
Malone, this is my grand-daughter Marguerite Hastings."  
  
"Miss Hastings," Malone shook hands with her, watched  
her blush. He looked up at Roxton, a touch of a smile on his  
lips. "Marguerite?"  
  
"The name seemed to fit since she has every bit of the  
fire her grandmother has!"  
  
"Grandfather!!"  
  
"Grandmother?!" Malone exclaimed.   
  
"And time didn't even stop when we married! How about  
that?!"  
  
"This is unbelievable!" Malone said.  
  
"To tell you the honest truth," Roxton said under his  
breath, "I was bloody surprised when she said 'yes' too!"  
  
Malone laughed out loud. "Then I guess'congratulations'  
are in order! Where is Marguerite?! I'd love to see her again!!"  
  
"I wish you could," John Roxton said.  
  
"She's not..."  
  
"Oh no, Malone!" Roxton shook his head. "Marguerite's  
gone to pick up a shipment of supplies on the coast. She'll be  
back in a couple of days."  
  
"Does she know..."  
  
The older man shook his head. "No..."  
  
"'Does she know' what, grandfather?" the girl asked.  
  
"That Mr. Malone was coming to visit..."  
  
"Lord John Roxton, I am not a little girl and you can  
stop treating me as such!" the young Marguerite said.  
  
Roxton laughed, looked back at Ned Malone. "See what I  
mean?"   
  
Malone chuckled. "Yes, I do!"   
  
"Marguerite, could you excuse Mr. Malone and me for a  
few minutes..."  
  
"I was wondering if I -if I could go play with the lion  
cubs..."  
  
"Under one condition."  
  
"Okay..."   
  
"That you keep Heath or someone nearby. The cubs are  
growing rapidly now and could hurt you by accident."  
  
"They'd never hurt me!" Marguerite said.  
  
"Nevertheless, I want someone there, just in case."  
  
"Oh, all right!"  
  
"Good. I tell you what; when Mr. Malone and I are done,  
I'll come join you. How does that sound?"  
  
"Really?!"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Okay!" Marguerite Hastings beamed. "It's been a  
pleasure meeting you Mr. Malone!"  
  
"The pleasure has been all mine, Miss Hastings!" Malone  
said.  
  
The girl gave Roxton a brief, happy embrace, then left  
them alone in the center room of the house, once again. Roxton  
stared after her in silence for a long moment, shook his head.  
"It's scary sometimes, looking at her!"  
  
"Just don't let her go running off on an uncharted  
expedition somewhere!" Malone urged.  
  
"I couldn't stop her if I tried!"  
  
Malone suddenly felt a coolness on his right hand once  
more; he looked down to find the tendril of colored light sliding  
inexorably up his arm.  
  
"Time to go it looks like," Roxton said.  
  
Malone stepped back, his gaze meeting John Roxton's.  
"I'm glad to see I'm glad to see you got what you wanted!"  
  
"So am I, Ned!"  
  
The liquified light was almost to his shoulder. "Good  
luck on your next journey, Roxton!"  
  
"And you with yours!"  
  
Malone slowly faded from view, stirring the air as he  
vanished.  
  
"Good bye, Ned."  
  
John Roxton turned away from the empty room with a  
slight smile and went to find his granddaughter.  
  
****  
  
A single column of multi-coloured light coalesced into  
the form of Edward Malone. For a few seconds it held steady,  
shifting from violet to blue, to a deeper indigo colour before  
fading away, leaving Malone standing solidly in it's place.  
  
Malone felt a brief disturbance of air beside him,  
turned to watch as a second column formed into the recognizable  
shape of John Roxton. The liquid light vanished after a moment  
and Roxton took a step forward.  
  
"That was...interesting..." Roxton said.  
  
"You're alive!" Malone smiled.  
  
Roxton padded his chest, offered Malone a confused  
look. "Of course I'm alive!"  
  
"It's just that where I was, you were..."  
  
"What?" Roxton wanted to know.  
  
Malone thought better of it, shook his head. "It  
doesn't matter..."  
  
"Where did you go anyway?" Roxton asked. "One minute  
you were there, the next you weren't..."  
  
Malone looked at his watch. "What time do you have?"  
  
Roxton frowned. "You just looked at your watch..."  
  
"Humour me..."   
  
Roxton withdrew his pocket watch with a sigh and  
flipped it open. "It's three o'clock."  
  
"That's what I have too," Malone nodded. "When we were  
in London, what time was it?"  
  
"Three..." Roxton met his gaze. "We heard Big Ben; it  
was three o'clock then too!"  
  
"And where I just came from and more than likely Libya  
with Marguerite, and, when we first entered 'The Forest of  
Eternal Mists'. Everywhere we've gone, it's been the same time!"  
  
"Like the moment's been frozen..."  
  
"Precisely!" Malone agreed. "We've traveled through  
time to several different eras, but always at the same moment,  
the same exact tick of the clock."  
  
Roxton nodded. "So where are we -now..."  
  
They were standing on a pathway surrounded by trees,  
stretching to a lattice-work roof of steel and glass. Outside the  
glass, the sky glowed with an eerie, red-orange colour.  
  
"This looks like a greenhouse or some kind of  
arboretum..."  
  
"The air is humid, so it's definitely self contained,"  
Roxton supplied. "Have you ever been to a place like this  
before?"  
  
"The botanical gardens in New York," Malone answered  
affirmatively. "This kind of reminds me of it, except for the sky  
outside."  
  
Roxton peered overhead. "It doesn't look like an  
ordinary sunset type sky, does it?"  
  
Malone shook his head. "There's something...Roxton, I  
swear I've been here before!"  
  
"After our little adventure today, nothing would  
surprise me more!"  
  
Malone pointed down the pathway in front of them. "I  
think we're supposed to go that way..."  
  
"I'm game if you are," Roxton nodded.  
  
They began to walk, bending once or twice to duck under   
boughs of trees hanging low over the path.  
  
"Malone, do you know of a place called 'The Polo  
Grounds'?"  
  
"'The Polo Grounds?!"  
  
"Yes. They called it that but I don't believe they  
played polo there!"  
  
Ned Malone laughed. "No, they don't play polo there.  
They play a game called baseball..."  
  
"'Baseball'?"  
  
"Similar to, but not exactly like the English game of  
cricket. In baseball, the game lasts nine 'innings'. You have  
'batters' who try to get on one of three 'bases' stretching  
around a diamond shaped 'infield'. The object is to get all the  
way around to where you started from, 'home plate'; if you do  
that you score what's called a 'run'. The team with the most  
'runs' at the end of nine innings wins the game!" Malone  
explained.  
  
Roxton frowned. "That's almost as confusing as this  
'unstuck in time' business!"  
  
"Actually, it's an easy game to understand. If and when  
we ever get back to where we're supposed to be in our own time,  
I'd love to take you to a game sometime; it'll be far easier to  
explain while we're there!"  
  
"I must say, it sounds somewhat intriguing."  
  
"Looks like there's a door ahead of us," Malone said,  
indicating a break in the glass and steel wall.  
  
"A door to where though?"   
  
"Or what?"  
  
Both men stopped at the door. It was made of frosted  
glass and a heavy, dark-wood, so whatever was on the other side,  
could not be seen.  
  
"So what do we do now?" Malone wondered aloud.  
  
"Knock?" Roxton suggested.  
  
Malone thought about it for a moment.   
  
"Why not?" He shrugged, knocked loudly on the door,  
waited for an answer. As expected, none came.  
  
"Again?"  
  
Malone repeated the knock...  
  
"Roxton, how did you know about the Polo Grounds?"  
  
"I was there, talking to you just before we ended up  
here."  
  
"Talking to me?"  
  
Roxton nodded. "You were covering the last game of the  
team that plays there..."  
  
"'The last game'?"  
  
"According to what you said, the team was moving to  
California."  
  
"California?!Impossible! They'd never leave New York!!"  
  
"Apparently they were doing just that!"  
  
Malone turned back to the door. "No answer. Do we just  
go in?"  
  
"With guns drawn, just in case!"  
  
"Agreed."  
  
Malone pulled his .45 from it's holster and clicked the  
hammer back. With his free hand he reached down and turned the  
door knob. The mechanism turned effortlessly in his hand; with a  
little push on his part, the door swung open, releasing a blast  
of very warm, dry air from inside.  
  
"Hello?" Malone called. "Anyone here?"  
  
Roxton exchanged looks with Malone. "Come into my  
parlour..."  
  
"...said the spider to the fly," Malone finished.  
  
Malone went inside first, keeping low and to the left.  
Roxton followed, one of his twin Webley .455's aiming straight  
ahead and one to the right.  
  
"Hot as hell in here!" Roxton said so only Malone could  
hear.  
  
Malone pointed to a nearby table. "Orchids!" he said.  
  
Roxton gestured down the flagstone path they were on.  
Malone began to move, walking slowly.  
  
After a few feet, Malone began to hear what sounded  
like a voice, humming contentedly.  
  
"You hear that?" he asked Roxton.  
  
"Yes..."  
  
They walked on another five meters or so, both men  
trying to make as little noise as possible, until they came upon  
another wall. At that wall a gray-haired, small man worked at a  
table, carefully tending to an orchid plant in a bed of black  
soil. The man was humming an unrecognizable tune and seemed to be  
lost in the work he was doing.  
  
Malone looked at Roxton; Roxton shrugged.  
  
"Excuse us!" Ned Malone called to the man. "Are you in  
charge of this place?"  
  
The man stiffened abruptly. "In charge here? Me?! Good  
heavens no!" The man's voice was instantly recognizable, even  
before he turned to face them.  
  
"Summerlee!?" Malone called as the gray haired man  
smiled.  
  
"And who else would it be, young Mr. Malone?!" Arthur  
Summerlee laughed. "Who else indeed??!!"  
  
****  
  
"Well I'll be damned!" John Roxton said aloud.  
  
Arthur Summerlee offered him an ebullient smile. "Not  
at all Lord Roxton..."  
  
"Summerlee, I don't understand this..." Malone began.  
  
"What don't you understand?"  
  
"We were -we've been traveling a bit," Roxton said.  
  
Summerlee nodded. "Yes, I know!"  
  
"You know? How do you know, Arthur?"  
  
"It told me..."  
  
"'It'?"  
  
"Yes, the thing you met in the forest this afternoon."  
  
Roxton exchanged looks with Malone. "So it is  
intelligent..."  
  
"Extraordinarily intelligent," Summerlee said. "More so  
than Challenger and myself combined, though God forbid that I  
should ever tell George as much!"  
  
Malone stared at him, almost transfixed.  
  
"You look as though you've just seen a ghost, young  
man!" Summerlee teased, directing it to the still open mouthed  
Ned Malone.  
  
"I'm not certain of what I'm seeing at this point!"  
Malone answered.  
  
Summerlee continued to smile. "I don't quite know why  
this startles you so; you've seen me here once before!"  
  
"I have?"  
  
"Think back to a few 'months' ago when I was trying to  
make contact with everyone through their dreams..."  
  
"Of course!" Malone exclaimed. "When I fell over the  
dried up falls you'd gone over!"  
  
"Precisely!" Summerlee said. "When the whirlwind had  
you, we both caught sight of one another. I wanted so much to  
talk to you and to tell you to be careful..."  
  
"Careful?"  
  
The older man nodded. "I'll explain it all in detail,  
shortly. Would either of you care to join me for tea? It's a bit  
early yet, but I have so few visitors here."  
  
"Arthur, if it'll get us out of this hot-house of yours  
for a few minutes, tea sounds wonderful!" John Roxton agreed.  
  
****  
  
The room was medium sized, carpeted in a deep burgundy  
pile. Dark wood paneling covered three of the four walls; the  
fourth was lined with shelves of leather bound books from floor  
to ceiling, while over head, a skylight of the same metal and  
glass lattice-work as in the greenhouse, revealed the reddish-  
orange sky beyond.  
  
"Very nice Arthur!" John Roxton called out to an unseen  
Summerlee.  
  
"Yes, I like it quite a lot, actually!" Summerlee  
answered.  
  
Roxton went to one of the bookshelves and traced a  
finger along a line of several volumes. "Pretty impressive  
collection..."  
  
Summerlee reappeared with a silver tea-service tray in  
hand. "I have plenty of free time to read, John. Most of my day  
is spent tending to my orchids and other plants; when I'm not  
there, I'm here."  
  
Roxton nodded. "So where is 'here' exactly?"  
  
Summerlee set the tea service on a small table. "You  
still take it in a china cup, I believe?" he asked Roxton.  
  
Roxton nodded. "Yes..."  
  
Summerlee poured each of them a cup of tea, indicated  
soft looking wing-back chairs. "Sit gentlemen, I know you have  
many questions."  
  
Roxton and Malone each sat. Roxton took a sip of the  
steaming brew, gave an approving nod. "Umm...delicious!"  
  
"A good cup of tea is so civil a thing," Summerlee  
mused. "Now then, I believe Malone had asked the first  
question..."  
  
"Yes. You said when you were trying to make contact  
with us, it was as an effort to warn us to be careful of  
something..."  
  
"Not some -'thing', some--'one'. Askquith."  
  
"'Askquith'?! You knew about him?!" Roxton queried.  
  
"Of course I did, John!" Summerlee said. "One of my  
main reasons for trying to contact you was to warn of him. I'm  
afraid the time dilation effect made that a bit difficult and I  
came out looking and sounding something like a ghost."  
  
"When I fell over the falls and the whirlwind had me;  
you were trying to tell me about his imminent arrival, weren't  
you?"  
  
Summerlee nodded. "Yes, but due to the doorway not  
being opened all the way, my words weren't clear enough for you  
to understand. I'm sorry for the amount of trouble and pain he  
put you all through."  
  
Roxton looked at him. "This thing we met in the forest;  
it had a hand in our survival, didn't it?"  
  
"Oh, very much so! We interest it!"  
  
"'Interest it' how?" Roxton wanted to know. "'Interest'  
it as in curiosity or 'interest' it like a monkey in a cage at  
the zoo..."  
  
"I was uncertain of it's motives as well when I first  
came here..."  
  
"You didn't answer my question, Arthur," Roxton said.   
  
Summerlee smiled. "It's exceedingly curious about us  
and the things we do. It wants to learn more about us."  
  
Ned Malone looked up from his teacup. "Is that what  
this entire thing has been about? It's been sending Roxton and I  
through time to see us do 'tricks'?"  
  
"Not at all Ned," Summerlee said. "It's been evaluating  
us, or, more precisely, the two of you under a set of  
specifically designed, very stressful circumstances..."  
  
"To what end?" Roxton interrupted.  
  
"As an experiment."  
  
"You mean we're it's lab rats," Roxton asserted.  
  
Summerlee gave a long-suffering sigh. "I suppose if one  
wanted to consider oneself as a lab rat..."  
  
"Why?" Malone asked.   
  
"A most excellent question, Ned!" Summerlee said. "The  
reason it's sending you on these various 'voyages' of yours is to  
see if we human beings can be trusted."  
  
"'Trusted' with what?" Roxton asked.  
  
"With the plateau's secrets," Summerlee answered. "This  
'column of light' is the plateau's guardian."  
  
"Guardian?"  
  
"Yes! Guardian, protector, curator; whatever you wish  
to call it, this plateau has existed outside the 'real' world for  
quite a long time now..."  
  
"And this thing, this guardian makes the plateau's  
existence outside the normal world possible?" Malone asked.  
  
"Oh no, not that at all!" Arthur Summerlee shook his  
head. "There are places on the Earth where magnetic and other  
phenomena intersect. This plateau is one of those intersecting  
points, a place where time and space don't behave the way they do  
anywhere else. The guardian, or 'gate-keeper' as I call it,  
oversees this particular realm."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"To keep it safe from those who would seek to destroy  
it."  
  
Roxton frowned. "Meaning us?"  
  
Summerlee smiled. "Yes, of course!"  
  
"The first trip Roxton and I took..."  
  
"Was one possible outcome of our party's intrusion  
here," Summerlee explained. "We returned to our world, let the  
location of this place be known and it was exploited and  
destroyed by mankind. Us in effect."  
  
"If that were true, why didn't it stop us, why didn't  
it just change the time-line and erase our ever having found this  
place?" Roxton asked.  
  
"Because John, the gate-keeper can't change the time-  
line of it's own volition. It exists both in and outside of time,  
so if it were to interfere with the natural progression of this  
world, it would destroy itself and, more than likely, this world  
as well."  
  
"Then why have this 'gate-keeper' at all if it can do  
nothing to prevent outside forces from destroying what it's  
supposed to protect?"  
  
"Believe me John, it has the power to do something. If  
it were so inclined, it could fold this corner of the universe in  
upon itself and give it non-existence! The gate-keeper doesn't do  
that because it can't harm another species, even one that could  
conceivably destroy it," Summerlee said.  
  
"So where does it come from?" Malone wondered.  
  
"I'm not certain even it knows the answer to that  
particular question," Summerlee shrugged. "When I asked it once,  
the gate-keeper told me it has always been here..."  
  
"Summerlee?" Malone glanced at him. "Were these times  
and places we visited, real?"  
  
"In those realities they were quite real."  
  
"Challenger's doors..."  
  
Summerlee looked at Roxton. "What?"  
  
"I'll explain it later Professor," Roxton said. "This  
place of yours..."  
  
"Not mine," Summerlee shook his head. "The gate-keeper  
carved out this small space for me in it's reality. I'm the  
'caretaker' for the caretaker you might say!"  
  
Roxton smiled. "So where is this 'reality'?"  
  
"The plateau..."  
  
Roxton peered through the lattice-work over their  
heads. "That's hardly a normal afternoon sky, Arthur!"  
  
"For a time period five thousand years hence it is!"  
  
Roxton exchanged looks with Malone. "Five thousand..."  
  
"Correct. The planet is only now becoming able to  
support life once again."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"Extinction Malone. Ninety nine percent of all plant  
and animal life perished in a natural disaster, some three  
thousand years ago," Summerlee said.  
  
"Extinction? How?"  
  
"I've never been told the complete story, other than  
that the disaster was so all encompassing that the human race  
perished..."  
  
"There must be -something left of mankind..."  
  
"A few ruins of large cities. All that man was, his  
art, his music, his genius, all of that has crumbled to dust and  
blows in the shifting sands outside this tiny hint of what we  
once were," Summerlee explained.   
  
"How did you get here, Arthur?" Roxton asked.  
  
"When I went over the falls, I was afraid I was dead.  
I hit my head on something and when I awoke, I was here in this  
place. The gate-keeper had brought me here."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Companionship."  
  
Roxton met his gaze. "Are you telling me it was  
lonely?"  
  
"It's an intelligent being," Summerlee nodded. "All  
intelligent beings need conversation and interaction within their  
world..."  
  
"Do you like it here?" Malone asked.  
  
"There are times when I would so love to return to the  
plateau and be with all of you, but I am content with my life  
here."  
  
"What about us? Are we here for 'companionship' as  
well?" Malone asked.  
  
"No. The two of you are here because I asked to see  
you," Summerlee said.  
  
"Why did you ask to see us, Arthur?"  
  
"I wanted to reassure you that you will be leaving this  
place..."  
  
"The plateau?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"When? How?"  
  
Arthur Summerlee smiled. "I'm not sure, other than to  
say your leaving will be quite surprising in it's ease!"  
  
Roxton offered him a frown. "Could you maybe give us a  
hint or two?"  
  
"I could but it would not really matter, for reasons  
that I'll explain to you later..."  
  
"Why, because the gate-keeper is afraid we'll change  
this time-line?" Malone asked.   
  
"But haven't we already affected the future by our  
interactions with the people we've met in our little journeys  
back and forth through time? Hasn't the gate-keeper affected time  
itself by assisting us when Askquith appeared, offering his help  
to us?" Roxton asked.   
  
"Who's to say that those things weren't predestined to  
happen in the first place, Ned!" Summerlee answered. He turned to  
face Roxton. "As for Askquith, he was trapped inside a time-line  
in which he originally died, but an electrical storm altered his  
reality and forced it into conjunction with yours. All the gate-  
keeper did was set right what had gone wrong! Since Askquith  
tried to change his reality by forcing all of you into it to crew  
the dirigible, the gate-keeper simply stepped in and set  
everything right again. Askquith paid the price for his  
foolishness--nonexistence--when the two time-lines finally caught  
up with one another!"   
  
"So what happens to us now, Arthur?" Roxton asked. "Do  
we keep bouncing back and forth through time or stay here with  
you?"  
  
"Neither one," Summerlee shook his head. "You have a  
job to do back on the plateau..."  
  
"The plague..."  
  
"Yes. The gate-keeper will take you back to where you  
were at the beginning of this. The Zanga need the leaves of the  
kialoma plant for their survival..."  
  
"The first time shift -Assai said we were too late,  
that the plague had mutated."  
  
"Time is of the essence," Summerlee agreed.  
  
Roxton nodded. "We'll see that Challenger gets what he  
needs, in time enough to save the Zanga."  
  
"There is one other thing gentlemen..."  
  
"What would that be?" Malone asked.  
  
"When you go back, you won't remember any of this."  
  
Roxton frowned. "What are you talking about?"  
  
Summerlee smiled. "This is what I was trying to tell  
you before. The knowledge you have now could change the futures  
of yourselves and the others. When you're taken back, it will be  
before the gate-keeper appeared..."  
  
"So none of what happened to Malone and I, will have  
happened?"  
  
Summerlee laughed. "Quite right, John!"  
  
"A person could get a headache from all this!" Roxton  
mused.  
  
Arthur Summerlee stood.  
  
"You sure I couldn't talk you into coming back with  
us?" Roxton asked, taking the extended hand Summerlee offered.  
  
"I believe I have a bit more to do here as of yet. The  
offer is so very kind though!" Summerlee turned to face Ned  
Malone. "Young Mr. Malone..."  
  
"It looks like we at least get to say good-bye this  
time around!" Malone said, taking Summerlee's right hand.  
  
"Good-byes are only brief, Ned," Summerlee said. "I  
will someday see all of you again!"  
  
"We'll both be looking forward to that day, Arthur!"  
John Roxton said.  
  
Arthur Summerlee smiled once more as the two men faded  
out, leaving him alone in the room.  
  
"Still have to get used to that," he mused as he  
gathered up their tea-cups, the service, and headed off to the  
kitchen.  
  
****   
  
"I can hardly see the hand in front of my face," John  
Roxton said.  
  
"I was in San Francisco once; this fog makes the fog  
there look like a clear day by comparison," Malone answered.  
  
John Roxton nodded, glanced over his shoulder at the  
younger man. "As much as I'd like to get a better look at this  
place, maybe we ought to get what we came for and start back."  
  
"I was just thinking the same thing. From what Veronica  
was saying, this place has been here 'forever'. Maybe our waiting  
a few days or weeks to explore it, won't hurt."  
  
Roxton frowned; there was something, a thought nagging  
at the back of his mind, something he wanted to remember. He  
concentrated for a long moment, then shook his head.  
  
"What is it Roxton?" Malone asked.  
  
"Nothing," he answered. "Let's grab our stuff and get  
back!"  
  
****  
  
Edward Malone was standing on the tree-house balcony  
looking up at the full moon; the moon was doing it's best to  
chase the darkness from the night sky and lit the plateau with  
it's pale, gray-white glow. Behind him, he could hear Marguerite,  
Roxton, and Veronica conversing in hushed tones.  
  
It had been one week since their return from the  
'Forest of Eternal Mists'. He and Roxton had most certainly  
pressed their luck on the way back, traveling at night and taking  
few if any breaks in their journey. The forced march had paid  
off; they had returned to the tree-house nearly exhausted, but  
with as many pounds of the kialoma leaves as they could carry in  
leather bags hung about their shoulders.  
  
Challenger then took over and worked throughout the  
night to make enough of the medicene for the Zanga. A few days  
after injecting each of the tribe members with the extract from  
the kialoma leaves, the recoveries had begun. The Zanga had lost  
a few very young and very old tribal members, but those with the  
plague were soon growing stronger and were able to eat something  
more than hot broth after a day or two.  
  
Malone smiled as he gazed at the moon...  
  
"Malone?" Veronica Layton said, interrupting his  
reverie.  
  
"You sounded like you were enjoying yourself just now,"  
Malone mused.  
  
Veronica moved in beside him. "I was telling Roxton and  
Marguerite about Challengers little run in with one of the Zanga  
women."  
  
Malone glanced at her. "What Zanga woman?"  
  
Veronica smiled. "A very single-in-need-of-a-husband-  
Zanga-woman..."  
  
"Uh-oh!"  
  
"Uh-oh is right! I've seen very little completely  
fluster Challenger, but she had him almost beside himself!"  
Veronica chuckled.  
  
Malone nodded, looked up at the moon once more.  
  
"What's so fascinating up there tonight?" Veronica  
asked, looking curiously at him. "You aren't figuring on turning  
into a werewolf again, are you?"  
  
Malone smiled. "No, not a werewolf..."  
  
"So what is it?"  
  
He looked at her. "You want to hear something that's  
completely absurd?"  
  
"Sure. I could use a few more absurdities in my life!"  
  
"You see those darker areas on the moon's surface..."  
  
Veronica nodded. "Yes..."  
  
"In a few decades, a man is going to step out onto the  
surface of that world."  
  
"Really?"  
  
Edward Malone nodded. "You want to know where?"  
  
"Okay..."  
  
Malone extended his right arm and pointed with his  
index finger. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he did, just as  
sure as he was standing on the balcony on that moonlit night.  
"Just a little to the left of the edge of that first dark area, a  
place called the 'Sea of Tranquility'. He's going to step out  
onto that ground and people all over the world are going to be  
watching it!"  
  
"How?" Veronica wanted to know.  
  
"On some kind of little box, like a radio, only it  
sends you pictures and sound."  
  
Veronica studied him for a long moment, a dawning  
realization that Ned Malone was filling her head with fanciful  
stories once again, beginning to spread across her features.  
"Someone's been reading Verne..."  
  
Malone faced her. "You know he has it almost exactly  
right? Everything Verne said in his book is almost word for word  
the way those future men take off from the Earth and land on the  
moon."  
  
She smiled patiently, reached out to touch his  
forehead.  
  
"What are you doing?" he asked.  
  
"Making sure you don't have fever!" Veronica answered.  
  
Malone smiled after a moment. "I guess I sounded a  
little ridiculous, hunh?"  
  
"Not at all, Malone," Veronica shook her head. "Why  
don't you tell me more about these future explorers..."  
  
****  
  
"Would you look at those two!" Marguerite Krux  
exclaimed. "Out there gazing up at the moon like two love-struck  
kids on their first date!"  
  
"I don't know," John Roxton said, looking up from  
cleaning his Webley's. "Moonlight becomes some people,  
Marguerite!"  
  
"'Some people'?" Marguerite asked.  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Only some?"  
  
He made a face. "It works best on those with romance in  
their hearts..."  
  
"And I don't have romance in my heart?"  
  
"Only if it's attached to a six karat diamond  
solitaire!"  
  
Marguerite made a disapproving sound. "All this time  
here, and you still haven't figured me out!"  
  
Roxton glanced up at her. "Man can split the atom and  
travel across the galaxy, but he'll never completely understand a  
woman!"  
  
"Why John Roxton, that's very poetic!"  
  
He smiled. "Very true also..."  
  
Roxton caught movement out of the corner of his eye. On  
the balcony Ned Malone had taken Veronica in his arms and was  
starting to kiss her. Roxton felt his eyebrows climb up his  
forehead...  
  
"Roxton, what are you..." Marguerite's voice trailed  
off. "Oh my!"  
  
"Marguerite, it's not polite to stare!" Roxton said, so  
only she could hear.  
  
"And you're not?!" she hissed back.  
  
He wanted to look away, but couldn't. "Looks like  
there's a little magic in the air tonight..."  
  
"Well I think I better go throw some cold water on the  
both of them before that 'magic' gets out of hand!" Marguerite  
said.  
  
"Don't you dare! It'll be nice to have -have..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I don't know!" Roxton reddened perceptibly. "They're  
young; let them enjoy being young!"  
  
"Anymore enjoyment and I'll have to have 'the talk'  
with Veronica!"  
  
"Now that I'd pay real money to see!" Roxton grinned.  
"When did Challenger say he'd be back?"  
  
"One, maybe two more days," Marguerite said. "He seems  
to think the plague will have run it's course by then..."  
  
"So what do we do in the mean time?"  
  
"I don't know about you, but I'm going to bed!"  
  
"This early?! Marguerite, you haven't gone to bed this  
early since we got here!" Roxton said.  
  
"Well, how about a nice, romantic, moonlight stroll?"  
she teased.  
  
"Here?! We'd probably get eaten!"  
  
The look Marguerite gave him spoke a thousand  
words...John Roxton hurried to finish cleaning the Webley in his  
hand.   
  
****  
  
Early the next morning, a single, multi-colored column  
of light appeared within sight of the tree-house. The column of  
light held steady for a moment before coalescing into the shape  
of a small man, attired in tan, wearing a pith helmet on his  
head.  
  
The column of light faded, leaving the man in it's  
place.  
  
"Home," Arthur Summerlee said, a beatific smile on his  
face. "So very much to do..."   
  
  
  
(Disclaimer The above work is an original story based upon the  
television series "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World". All  
characters contained herein are copyrighted by said show and are  
used by this author in a non-commercial way. Any distribution of  
the story "Future Past" without the expressed written consent of  
the author on sites other than fanfiction.net is strictly  
prohibited.) 


End file.
